Kirby Smart shares motivation for 2023 season, strategies to avoid complacency
By Keith Farner
Published:
Kirby Smart has made a habit of leading his Georgia program in the offseason to study great programs across sports and other organizations. Since Georgia has won the last 2 national championships, it has studied programs that have fallen off from heights, and others that have sustained success.
This time, the Bulldogs studied the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, who he called the most successful team ever, as a way of avoiding complacency. “Better never rests,” he said as the Bulldogs’ adopted motto for 2023. Smart said Georgia studied the All Blacks for 6 weeks and took that mantra because the Bulldogs don’t want complacency.
“They’ve done it better than anybody else,” Smart said. “… What drives us for this season is intrinsic motivation. We’re not going to be controlled by outside narratives and what people say and who’s going to be the quarterback. The intrinsic motivation comes from within and what we decide to do. This team, the 2023 team, is still defining itself. We don’t know where that goes. That happens over the course of the rest of the summer and fall camp. But I like where it’s at. I love the buy-in, I love the fact that these guys love being around each other and love competing and they love football. So that’s important to me.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
