Even more Pruitt quotes from UGA Day

This from 247 sports by Gentry Estes



On having a background as a high school coach …
“To me, the best teachers in the business are the high school coaches. I mean, they take them from the ground up. Just being around and doing that at the high school programs I was in, we worked with the pee-wees, the junior high. We had our hands on all parts of the program. Being around high school kids, some years you’ve got a three-technique that weighs 270 pounds. Some years he weighs 150 pounds. You’ve just got to make do with what you’ve got.”

On eliminating confusion defensively …
“We’re going to teach them what to do. We’re going to teach them how to do it. We’re going to teach them why it’s important to do it that way. It’s not about what we know. It’s what they know so they can execute, they can play fast, have confidence in what they’re doing. And it’s not just about them. It’s about believing in the people beside them.”

On starting over at a new school …
“The good thing for me this time around is I’ve done it a year ago. I kind of went through the bumps or whatever in the road, and hopefully I won’t make the same mistakes that I made at Florida State to start off with. But it’s been a seamless transition getting to know these guys. And I knew a lot of them. Being at Alabama, I’d recruited some of them in the past. So it’s been fun. … I walked in door and Malcolm Mitchell, he just had a big smile on his face, because for a year-and-a-half I chased him around South Georgia. I’m glad I lost him.”

On who has bought in the most to what Pruitt is doing …
“It’s a little easier for the younger guys -- some of the guys, they didn’t really know another way to do it, because maybe they didn’t play last year or were redshirted – then it is for some of these guys have been in the program for a while. They were used to doing it a certain way and had success doing it that way. But I would say the one guy that really stuck out to me this spring was J.J. Green. … I knew him from Camden County and recruiting and going through there. I really would have liked to coach him. I talked to Coach Richt about it, and he decided to move over. And he really from the first day said, ‘Hey, just coach me, coach. I’ll do whatever I need to do.’”

On what happened with Josh Harvey-Clemons and who replaces him …
“First of all, I didn’t really know the kid that well. Just in recruiting, and he was there a short time. But we don’t have any starters right now. There’s no starters at Georgia on the defensive side of the ball. We’re a work in progress. We’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got really good attitudes. The kids are working hard, and we’re just going to keep on focusing on attention to detail and laying out a plan for them to have success. I can tell this, I don’t know who’s going to play there. But whoever it is, you’ll be proud of him.”

On not settling a lineup until close to first game (or after it) …
“To me, and I talked to our guys about this, I hope our goals are not to be a starter at Georgia. I hope our goal is to be the best player at their position in the SEC. So there will be some guys that probably start at the beginning of the year that won’t be there at the end of the year. I hope we can create some competition where everybody has to go hard each and every week.”

On success at Florida State maybe translating in year one at UGA …
“Well, Florida State went to the Orange Bowl the year before I got there. They were the Orange Bowl championships, and they were probably in the top 10 in every defensive category except turnovers and red-zone defense. So it wasn’t broke there. I was lucky enough to inherit some good players, but probably the most important part was there were three seniors who were leaders on the defense that really bought in and really kind of controlled the defense. We completely changed everything, and everybody bought in. We’re looking for that type of leadership here at Georgia.”

On his personnel preference at defensive end being more of a 3-4 or a 4-3 …
“We’re going to recruit to a 4-2-5 defense. That’s what we’re going to recruit to. Now you will see us line up in some 3-4 alignments. But basically our defensive ends if we go to a 3-4, they’ll just stand up on occasion. I can teach anybody in this room to play first to the flat. What we’re looking for is the traditional 4-3 defensive ends that come off the edge. Then there will be times that we’ll gameplan and we may play with three true D-tackles if need be.”

Closing statement to fans…
“I want to say this, OK. Everybody says, ‘Why did you come to Georgia?’ This is why I came to Georgia: First of all, we have all the resources at the University of Georgia as good or better than anybody else in the country, OK? … Second of all, the talent in this state, football or whatever, there’s as good a talent (as anywhere) in this state of Georgia right now, and there always has been. They still do it the right way here.

“My challenge to you and all your friends, when you see one of your buddies that’s a Georgia alumni, fan, whatever: It takes all of us. We’ve all got to be lined up together. We’re all Dawgs in here. Y’all kind of got me fired up here woofing. When we were talking about calling out the Dawgs, I didn’t know what we were about to do. But it takes a team deal. We’ve all got to get in this state together and protect our state – because it is our state – and keep all these guys here at home, because there’s enough talent we ain’t got to go many other places to get them in football.”