There are a lot of challenges that Georgia must overcome if they are going to beat Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl. Many of those challenges are due to how great of a team Ole Miss is, but there are some outside factors that will impact UGA as well.
Kirby Smart shared what his biggest concern is entering this game and it has to do with the amount of time they have been off since winning the SEC Championship game.
"Well, shape, game shape. You can run all you want, but you can't get into game shape until you play a football play," Smart said via 247sports.com. "Football consists of sprinting 10 to 15 yards, tackling somebody, getting up, repeat that, repeat that. You don't do that in a layoff. You don't go tackle live and hit people and risk injury, especially this time of year. So your fundamentals, blocking and tackling, can deteriorate really quickly if you're just worried about being in shape. So we try to attack it all."
Kirby Smart has a solution for his biggest concern
Smart made it very clear that being off for as long as Georgia has been can impact their game shape. He also mentioned how it's very difficult to simulate the game in practice because running full contact drills increases the chance of injury.
Georgia however isn't afraid of having a lot of contact in their drills. The media was allowed to watch a portion of Georgia's practice last weekend and it was very clear how physical Smart was letting them play.
Georgia practice is physical. And Kirby is hilarious pic.twitter.com/8uNOiyKorF
— Radi Nabulsi (@RadiNabulsi) December 27, 2025
Smart's sole purpose in doing this is to make sure his team stays in game shape. That is something that won't be a problem for Ole Miss since they played a game about 10 days ago, but running high intensity practices like this will certainly help.
Kickoff between the Bulldogs and Rebels is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 1 at 8:00 pm EST.