There might not be a varsity lacrosse team at Georgia, but that isn’t stopping the Bulldogs from learning the ins and outs of the poke, the ding dong and the rusty gate — all different forms of checks in lacrosse.

The sport has picked up steam across the nation, specifically in the mid-Atlantic region where the Dukes, Marylands and Syracuses of the world have taken on a newer-generation sport that combines speed and finesse with physicality and aggression.

Georgia hasn’t yet joined the varsity lacrosse movement, but the football team is making sure to fill that void until the university decides to add the sport to the athletic department.

At least, that’s if Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart has his way.

Georgia’s first-year coach has a track record of using non-football symbols as a way to motivate his defensive personnel. While at Alabama, the defense used a WCW title belt to signify the defensive player that created the best ball disruption (force fumbles, interceptions, swatted passes, etc.) on the defensive side of the ball.

Points were awarded to Crimson Tide defenders for certain plays with an emphasis on turnover creation. The belt was passed along from teammate-to-teammate for exemplary defensive days, and it became so entrenched in the mindset of the team that the top players in fall camp got their names engraved on the belt.

On ESPN’s G-Day broadcast, sideline reporter Shannon Spake told the story of the time she wore the affectionately named “ball-out belt” on the Alabama sideline. Smart informed her she might not want to tell coach Nick Saban why she was wearing it because, apparently, the man often thought to be a control freak didn’t know about his defensive coordinator’s little incentive technique.

As the head man, Smart doesn’t have to worry about anyone finding out about his new strategy, which has replaced the WCW belt with a pair of lacrosse sticks — one awarded to the secondary and one awarded to the front seven.

According to Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald, Kirby Smart doesn’t have a lacrosse background, and admittedly, doesn’t really know much about the sport.

That hasn’t shielded Smart from the obvious tenacity most lacrosse athletes have shown in the few times he has watched the sport. Smart indicated his admiration of lacrosse players for their willingness to throw their body and sticks at offensive players in hopes of forcing a turnover or loose ball.

That’s exactly what the defensive-minded coach hopes to see from his new defense, so he wanted to up the ante by offering a symbol of courageous defensive efforts. You strip the ball loose, you get the stick. You pick off a pass, the stick is all yours.

It’s a pretty simple perform-and-reward concept that the entire defense, so it seems, has embraced. Quincy Mauger and Malkom Parrish appear to be the front-runners for most times earning the lacrosse stick in the spring.

Smart wasn’t pleased with the showing in the G-Day game, telling Weiszer that nobody earned the stick after the spring scrimmage, though Aaron Davis did get some face time with one of the lacrosse sticks on the G-Day broadcast after his 98-yard interception return for a touchdown, prompting the ESPN sideline report on the defense’s newest prop.

So Georgia might not know that much about the sport as a whole, but the Bulldogs seem to know that if they’re flaunting the lacrosse stick, they did something right.

And if they need any more pointers, Smart might be wise to reach out to the Georgia club lacrosse team — known social media gurus — for some pointers.