Everything Georgia coach Kirby Smart said about Vanderbilt football

The No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs (4-0, 2-0 SEC) host the Vanderbilt Commodores (3-1, 0-1 SEC) as Georgia looks to continue its hot start to the season. Entering Saturday’s game, Georgia is coming off a 41-13 win over Oklahoma and can’t get caught looking ahead to next week’s game against Alabama. Vanderbilt lost a defensive battle on the road at Auburn last week.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart shared that the Bulldogs started preparation for Vanderbilt on Monday. Georgia has won the last six meetings against Vanderbilt including a 37-20 win in the last meeting between the two former SEC East programs.

“They’ve got a great program, a great team,” Smart said. “They arguably should have made the playoffs last year with the record they had and the teams they beat. He (Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea) does a tremendous job there, and they’re really a physical football team made in the same mold with a defensive coach as us.”

Vanderbilt has looked much better in recent seasons and really thrived in the quarterback Diego Pavia era. The Commodores are no longer the doormat of the SEC.

“I have a lot of respect for Clark (Lea),” Smart said. “He’s one of the best voices in our room. He does a lot for college football. He’s super intelligent, and I enjoy the friendship I have with him. I respect the job he does for all of college football and the SEC, and the way he represents us on different things.”

“He has tremendous talent and is way better athletically than people give him credit for,” Smart said on Curtis, a former five-star recruit that flipped to Vanderbilt before signing with the Commodores in Dec. 2025. “I don’t know if one person has tackled him yet. He’s strong. He’s quick. He’s powerful, and he’s got great arm talent. Everything that everybody thought has been true.”

“They’re athletic,” Smart noted. “They’ve got twitchy guys. They’ve always had really good defensive players, in my opinion. They do a good job. They’re sound fundamentally, play really hard, and he’s (Clark Lea) got a defensive staff, but he’s also the head coach. He’s a defensive guy. He does a good job of it.”

“You’ve got to tackle well,” Smart explained. “We’re going to play mobile quarterbacks the entire year. Tell me somebody that’s not mobile that plays quarterback. I don’t know if there is one. They’re all mobile. They’re all athletic. They’ve all got good arms. They’re all good players. They’ve all got good teams. It doesn’t change what we have to do each week.”

The Georgia-Vanderbilt game will kickoff at 12:45 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 3 and the game will be televised on SEC Network.

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This article originally appeared on UGA Wire: Everything Georgia coach Kirby Smart said about Vanderbilt football