Coming from Alabama, Smith helped Georgia players improve practice habits

For three years, Maurice Smith was used to a certain manner of practice while playing for Alabama.

Each day was demanding for every member of the football program. That’s not to say it wasn’t at Georgia while Smith was with the Crimson Tide. But Smith noticed certain differences in practice habits once he arrived at Georgia as a graduate transfer in August.

At Alabama, Smith said there was a different buy-in level among players with how to practice – not what to practice. And that’s what Smith harped on at the start of the season as to why Alabama has been so dominant during the past decade.

Slowly but surely, the influx of those who were formerly at Alabama – head coach Kirby Smart, defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, inside linebackers Glenn Schumann and Smith – helped change Georgia’s practice habits. It gives Smith, who started all 12 games during his final collegiate season, optimism that Georgia will turn its program into something similar.

“It’s a mindset. It’s not so much this coach is better than this coach,” Smith said. “It’s all a mindset. Once you get a taste of that, it’s really what you believe in now. It’s like a religion almost. It’s just how you go about yourself. You don’t take less. You demand greatness in every practice, every play.”

In Smart’s first season as a head coach, Georgia finished with an 8-5 record. Smart hasn’t been a part of a team with that many losses in a single year since his first at Alabama, when the Crimson Tide finished 7-6 in head coach Nick Saban’s first year.

Part of any coaching change is growing accustomed to the new style brought in. When Georgia hired Mark Richt after the 2000 season, he brought in what was familiar to him during his time at Florida State. Smart has done the same, considering he spent the previous nine years at Alabama. As it turned out, getting Smith to transfer from Alabama to Georgia turned out to pay off in a bigger way than by simply adding a starting defensive back.

Smith immediately stepped into a leadership role and taught his new teammates how the coaching staff wanted things done, considering the amount of success this process had at Alabama.

“He’s very demanding at practice, especially early on in camp,” Smart said. “I just thought, to step out of your comfort zone, you’re around people you don’t know. But he knew a standard of work habits. He wanted everyone to go to his level.”

Smith would stay after practice to run up hills and put in extra work with the JUGS machine. He was often on the late bus back from the club sports complex to Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall. In the weight room, as teammates were leaving, Smith would still be getting extra reps.

That proved to be a good example for others to follow and helped Smith earn one of the permanent team captain spots at Georgia’s year-end gala in December.

“I can’t say enough about Mo,” Tucker said. “First and foremost, he’s an excellent young man. He’s a hard worker, an excellent leader for us. He’s a very tough competitor. He takes the approach every day that he feels he has to improve himself every day. He doesn’t take days off, he doesn’t take plays off.”

Smith came to Georgia after spending three years mostly on special teams at Alabama. He was a part of a national championship program and would be playing with one again if he had decided to stay.

But Smith never saw much of an opportunity to play on defense during his three years with the Crimson Tide, with that aspect being something he yearned to do. That’s one of the main reasons he elected to transfer to Georgia.

Smith won’t have a long legacy to look back on during his one year at Georgia. But his addition gave the Bulldogs a player to help bridge the gap and assist with the understanding of how things were done at Smart’s previous employer. Over time and as the season went along, Smith saw gains made at practice, which gives him optimism that Georgia’s future is headed in the right direction.

“If you look back from the first game, even the first scrimmage from when I got here, there’s so much that’s changed,” Smith said. “Practice habits, the way we prepare for games, watching film, studying film. The younger guys are really picking the playbooks up, how to practice, how to finish plays. It’s amazing how much a couple of people coming from one program can change the mindset of a whole university’s program, staff, everything. They’re doing a great job of that.”

This story was originally published January 5, 2017 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Coming from Alabama, Smith helped Georgia players improve practice habits."