Kirby Smart’s Georgia squad ended spring practice on a warm note with the G-Day spring game in Athens.

“You find out a lot about guys’ physical and mental toughness when you have heat,” Smart told reporters after the spring game. “How you respond? A lot of guys had to play more snaps than they are used to. I was really pleased with the effort.”

As for the team’s performance, Smart called it a tale of 2 halves.

“We had a first half where we lit it up on offense and didn’t think we could stop anything defensively,” Smart said in his postgame press conference. Then flip that over in the second half. We couldn’t score any points. Obviously, we have to improve in both of those areas, but there were some positive things that came out of today, too. Some guys played well. I thought we did some good things on both sides of the ball.”

The leading G-Day storyline was the quarterback competition. Carson Beck and Brock Vandagriff have spent the most time with the first-team offense in the spring. Gunner Stockton, a 2022 signee, is the third scholarship QB competing for the job.

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“It’s hard because I’ve got to go back and watch the tape as always. I thought both of them had good composure, good pocket presence,” Smart said. “I thought Brock used his legs several times to break out of there and take off running. Brock unfortunately had some guys that dropped the ball on him. I thought the balls were really well thrown and should’ve been caught. He did a nice job in the pocket of making those throws and then Gunner did some really good things.”

Throughout the spring, Smart has expressed confidence that all 3 quarterbacks are capable of leading the Dawgs.

“I was really pleased with all 3 quarterbacks and what you saw today was some of what we’ve seen all spring,” Smart said. “We have 3 good quarterbacks who can make the throws and do a really good job, I was pleased with those guys.”

The 2023 team heads into the season as 2-time defending national champions. Many key players from the back-to-back national championship squads are set to get drafted this month, but Smart feels the 2023 squad is the most cohesive he has had in the spring.

“I have always said, we are built to sustain here…We are not trying to be a one-hit wonder,” Smart said. “I want to put a really good football team out there each year, and we are well on our way to doing that at this time. We probably have the most cohesive unit we’ve had at this time in terms of the guys love being with each other, they like practicing hard. We had 14 of the 15 days where I really thought we had good practices. That includes today. I was really pleased with their work ethic.”