Georgia Bulldogs

ATLANTA -- Florida coach Will Muschamp created waves Tuesday with his comments at a Gator Club meeting about Georgia’s two-game winning streak against its biggest rival.

One person who wasn’t surprised by Muschamp’s remark that “it’s not going to be a long winning streak, I can assure you” was Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham.

“What do you expect him to say at a Gator function?” Grantham told reporters Wednesday afternoon prior to speaking at the UGA Day event in Atlanta. “Will’s a guy that I know personally, and I think he’s done a great job at Florida. I think he’s very competitive, as we all are as coaches. He’s a guy that wants to win. I think he’s just really trying to fire up the people in Jacksonville.”

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Editor's note: This week we continue to empty our notebook from Georgia's spring practices to tell the stories we didn't get to tell before the Bulldogs' G-Day game. Previously we featured fullback Quayvon Hicks, tight end Jay Rome, defensive end Ray Drew, safety Connor Norman, cornerback Damian Swann and receiver Rantavious Wooten. Today we recap a conversation with senior defensive lineman Garrison Smith.

ATHENS, Ga. -- Even Garrison Smith, Georgia’s lone returning defensive lineman with any significant experience, had difficulty adapting to a new coach’s methods early in spring practice. So he knew that a new coach and a complex defensive scheme would become major learning obstacles for his less experienced teammates.

“I’m starting over, but I’m just trying as hard as I can and just bringing these young guys up because we’ve got a sophisticated defense and young guys like Jonathan Taylor, Chris Mayes, John Atkins, right now our defense is calculus for them,” Smith said midway through spring practice. “It’s like basic addition and subtraction for me. But for them right now, it’s like they’re doing rocket science. If y’all were to watch some of the film, it would be a funny sight. It would be like they’re creating some type of new defense.”

And it wasn’t just the new defensive linemen who had a lot to learn. Multiple players across the board used the spring as a jumping-off point for their playing careers at Georgia, but the group made rapid progress during that valuable instructional time.

“You can ask [freshman inside linebackers] Reggie Carter and Ryne Rankin about the defense. Like I say, it’s rocket science for them, too,” Smith chuckled. “But that’s just a part of the game when you’re just a young freshman. They don’t expect you to know everything like a senior would, but at the same time, the coaches hold you to a higher standard and they get on you, but that’s just to make you better. They don’t want you to get complacent with not knowing enough. They want to push you as fast as you can so you can learn it.”

Having spent his first three seasons working under defensive line coach Rodney Garner -- who in December returned to his alma mater, Auburn -- Smith had to unlearn some old habits to satisfy new position coach Chris Wilson. It wasn’t like learning an entire defensive scheme, but it required some adjustments nonetheless.

“Even though I’m a veteran, I’m kind of like a freshman all over again because I’m learning new techniques of how to play different things because I’ve got another coach that wants me to play a different way, so I’m having to adapt every day,” Smith said.

That process will continue well into preseason practice, as Wilson continues evaluating and instructing the players who were available in the 15 spring workouts and adds to the mix others such as junior college transfer Toby Johnson, who learned just this week that he will be eligible to compete in the fall.

Smith seemed to like the direction things were heading in the spring, however, noting that the young defense was holding its own against the Bulldogs’ veteran offense more often than experience might have indicated.

“We’ve got one of the best offenses in the country, so if our defense with all these new guys can compete and play on the level of this great offense we’ve got, then the sky’s the limit for us because we’re playing against some of the best right now,” Smith said. “Other opponents, we’re going to be able to match up well against them if we can contain our own offense.”

ATHENS, Ga. -- Christian Robinson wasn’t unemployed for long.

Only a day after learning that the St. Louis Rams did not plan to keep him as a rookie free agent, Robinson accepted Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s offer to serve as one of the Bulldogs’ defensive graduate assistants this fall.

“I decided last night with my family and called and told my agent I was hanging up the helmet and that I wanted to pursue this job,” Robinson said Tuesday afternoon. “I called Coach Grantham this morning and before I could even say anything, he told me I was hired. So yeah, I was pretty excited.”

Grantham sat down with Robinson before the 2012 senior left for the Rams’ rookie camp and discussed the idea of a grad assistant position if he didn’t make the cut in the NFL. Robinson felt good about his performance in a couple of practices with the Rams and the speed with which he picked up their defensive scheme -- he even lined up alongside former Georgia teammate and first-round draft pick Alec Ogletree in some alignments -- but the team signed several other linebackers and informed him Monday that he wasn’t in their plans.

Robinson had a decision to make, but it didn’t take long for him to inform his agent, Adam Sattler, that he felt the smart move was to begin pursuing his long-term career goal of becoming a coach.

“I called my agent and talked to him and I said, ‘I have this position open to go back and be a GA and I really think that I don’t want to sit around and wait for somebody to call me to make a 90-man roster when I’m not even on their radar right now and the likelihood of making it is very low,’ ” Robinson said. “So my agent talked to me and said, ‘You’re not like a lot of guys.’ A lot of guys, this is their only option and they don’t have a slot like I do to go back and be a GA so quickly. He said, ‘It would be hard for me to tell you not to do that at this point.’ ”

Robinson still must pass the GRE to be admitted to a UGA graduate school program -- he plans to take the test next Tuesday -- and then he can jump into the responsibilities in his new position. He will replace Mike Kelly, who recently accepted a defensive line coaching position in Mississippi, in working as an on-field assistant, assembling scouting reports and scout-team preparation among the many behind-the-scenes tasks that grad assistants typically handle.

Having played for the Bulldogs so recently, Robinson knows this is a rare opportunity. But his knowledge of Grantham’s defensive scheme and terminology will also help him hit the ground running as an instructor, which should come in handy in working with the four true freshmen who will play his former position, inside linebacker, this season.

“That’s one thing my dad’s reminding me -- not a lot of guys have this opportunity, how easily it was kind of handed to me by the coaching staff,” Robinson said. “I really appreciate it. It’s definitely my dream position if I’m not playing professional football.”

ATHENS, Ga. -- Rennie Curran doesn’t exactly have an everyman’s story.

The son of Liberian immigrants, he became an All-SEC performer at Georgia, one of the Bulldogs’ most popular players and an NFL draft pick by the time he was 21 years old. And yet Curran believes that reading his story of struggling to succeed in professional football as an undersized linebacker might help people cope with more typical problems in their own lives.

So after the Tennessee Titans released him in 2011 and he sat by the phone for weeks waiting for a phone call that didn’t come, he sat down to write “Free Agent: The Perspectives of a Young African-American Athlete,” a book about pursuing your ambitions even in the most trying times.

“I realized that just like what I was going through, so many people were going through the same situation like if they got fired from their job or they were coming into the real world out of college -- that time where you’re in no man’s land and you’re trying to find yourself,” Curran said. “I just talk about the different life lessons that you learn like when you’re a free agent.”

Curran released the book last month, only a few weeks after opting to follow a new path that will keep his football dreams alive. He hasn’t been on an NFL roster since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers cut him last preseason, so the 5-foot-11 linebacker decided to try his hand in the Canadian Football League.

The 24-year-old will report to camp with the Edmonton Eskimos at the end of this month.

“I decided to make that transition just to find a team that believes in me,” Curran said. “I know they’ve got other linebackers in the CFL that are closer to my size. It’ll be a league that’s mostly a passing league, so I’ll be able to develop passing skills and other skills and just get on the field. That’s one of my biggest things is I feel like if I can just find my way on the field, I’ll be able to show people my abilities. Any time a team has given me a chance, I’ve never disappointed.”

Before he leaves, however, Curran will continue with a busy schedule promoting his book at signings and media appearances around the Atlanta area. Thus far, he has found a receptive audience that reaches well outside Georgia’s boundaries.

“Probably the biggest one so far was at about 4 a.m. I was coming home from one of my friends’ birthday parties at like 3 o’clock in the morning, 4 o’clock in the morning,” Curran said. “I checked my email and it was from a soldier in Afghanistan who had read my book during his 12-hour guard shift. He was telling me how inspired he was and everything like that and it just gave me goosebumps.”

Experiencing disappointment and failure in football led Curran to reevaluate his definition of success, he said. Having achieved so much by a young age, he did not have much experience with doors closing in his face. But that’s what the vast majority of his audience will deal with -- sometimes frequently -- in their lives, and Curran believes his story will help them learn that they are not alone.

“There’s so many obstacles and times of uncertainty that you’re going to go through,” Curran said. “I think that the person who picks up the book, they’ll realize that whether you’re a professional athlete or whatever you’re trying to achieve, just because you’re in a position of success doesn’t mean you’re not going to go through your doubting and your low times.

“That’s one of the things I talk about is that even when things seem perfect, you still have times where things change and one thing you’ll deal with in life is transition and the times of where you find yourself and find things out about yourself. Those things happen when you go through some type of adversity. … Part of me writing was just to encourage people to keep fighting to achieve those dreams.”

In this week's SEC Official Visit, we talk about a trio of big commits for the Auburn Tigers, and a top QB decides to stay home in Kentucky.

ATHENS, Ga. -- Hours after Georgia’s heartbreaking 32-28 loss to Alabama in last year’s SEC championship game, running back Keith Marshall couldn’t shake the sick feeling in his stomach.

He’d been a part of devastating defeats before, but seeing his team literally be a few seconds -- and yards -- away from one of the program’s biggest wins crushed the freshman. After seeing everything he and his teammates went through to get to that moment, watching a batted ball decide the Bulldogs’ postseason fate was a killer.

But it only got worse a month later when he watched that same Alabama team crush a completely overmatched Notre Dame team in the Discover BCS National Championship.

“That hurt; I’m not gonna lie,” Marshall said. “I feel like we could have done the same thing. Everybody obviously watched the SEC championship -- that was the national championship. (The BCS title game) wasn’t even competition.”

What really shook Marshall was how dominant Alabama’s running game was against the Irish. Led by the dynamic duo of Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon, the Tide pounded away with 265 rushing yards.

With how well Georgia’s own rushing tandem of Marshall and Todd Gurley did in 2012, the two could only sulk when watching how easy Alabama’s backs had it.

“I was just looking and thinking that could have been us,” Gurley said. “We could have done the same thing.

“That might have hurt worse than losing (to Alabama in the SEC championship game), just to see how bad they did them and how bad they were running on them.”

And he’s probably right.

Gurley topped all SEC running backs with 1,385 rushing yards, while Marshall added another 759 yards in 2012. The two also combined for 25 rushing touchdowns.

Gurley did the smashing, while Marshall did more dashing. They complemented each other so well and never once complained about sharing the spotlight.

It’s an almost foreign concept to think about two players who stood alone as the stars of their high school teams being OK with sharing the limelight. It’s not hard to be selfish in this sport, but both say they embraced the idea of working together well before they even got on campus.

With Isaiah Crowell still on the roster while they were being recruited, they figured they’d have to take a backseat to him from the jump. But after he was dismissed from the team last summer, the pair took on the responsibility of being the feature backs.

Fresh out of high school and they were now running the show, and it was their unselfish nature that fueled their fire.

“I don’t think anybody wanted the spotlight to themselves,” Gurley said. “You have to share with somebody.”

For Marshall, he’s glad he and Gurley split time. Marshall carried the ball an average of eight times a game, while Gurley hovered around 15 carries. Sharing actually helped combat wear and tear.

“I probably wouldn’t have been as productive if I was getting 25 carries a game,” he said. “I think it’s the same for [Gurley].”

Instead of pouting, they pushed each other and became best of friends away from the field -- only making them stronger on it.

Either one could stand alone in just about any SEC backfield, but they prefer to work together.

They still compete with each other, but they strive for improvement more than anything.

“Obviously, you want to be the best in everything that you do. That’s just the part of being a competitive athlete, but I just try to do the best to my ability every day,” Marshall said. “I’m striving to be the best, but you just have to work as hard as you can. I’m not really focused on (Gurley). We’re competing, but we’re trying to help each other at the same time.”

University of Georgia lineman Kolton Houston is fighting to regain NCAA eligibility after a 2010 positive drug test.