It’s no secret that the Georgia Bulldogs have not been as dominant when it comes to tackling.
As the Bulldogs get ready to close out their regular season at home over the next two weeks, head coach Kirby Smart decided to address the situation ahead of the UMass game in a humorous way.
Smart had a lot of fun introducing punter Brett Thorson as a “tackling expert” to the team and even let him share a presentation on tackling.
Thorson had earned the right to speak in front of his teammates on the matter after he took down Tennessee Volunteers‘ return man Boo Carter and ultimately prevented him from scoring a touchdown in Week 12’s victory.
Thorson tossed around jokes about Kirby Smart’s height and Will Muschamp’s own poor tackling history during his time at Georgia.
Smart couldn’t help but laugh about it and explained the context of letting Thorson turn a serious matter into humor.
“Yeah, he adds levity. I mean, he’s funny I was telling Muschamp last night, there was a guy, golly, must be 20 years now ago at LSU, a punter by the name of Donnie Jones,” Smart said. “Donnie used to get up in front of the team. Coach Saban would let him talk to the team and break the team down every Thursday. He would talk about the upcoming opponent. When a punter gets up there and talks about an upcoming opponent and just how we’re going to dominate them and just get after them, it always provided some levity. It provided some humor.
“I think of Brett when I think of Donnie. He’s just a funny guy. The players really enjoy him and like him. We thought it was a good opportunity for him to take advantage of what he did. We’ve struggled to tackle for whatever reason. We haven’t tackled well, so we’re searching for any answer we can. We wanted to drive that home to them that he did it.”
After laughing about their mistakes and correcting them throughout practice, the Bulldogs will turn their game faces back on as look to make another playoff run.
