Kirby defends the five-star early enrollee.
He also pushed back on how his comments a week earlier were portrayed when he said that Fields and the other freshmen were “hitting the wall,” during spring drills. He thinks some took that to mean that only Fields was being described that way.
“That kid is really not like that,” Smart said. “He’s very intuitive, he’s very smart, he picks things up well. So, that was like, someone blew that way out of the water. When I say, ‘hitting the wall,’ I mean there’s times where they kind of don’t do as well as maybe we’d like them to do. I was really talking about the other freshmen, not so much him. He didn’t have his best day after that either. But this week he’s been very efficient, made good decisions.”
I see. Whatevs. It doesn’t really matter until G-Day QBR the opener rolls around, anyway.
On the other hand, this description on how some of Fields’ game might be held back in practice is pretty funny.
Fields is known to have an ability to make big plays with his feet—he was credited with 2,096 rushing yards in two years as a high school starter–but just like in other practices, the quarterbacks are not getting tackled in scrimmages.
That means a play he may have turned into a big gain will get whistled dead.
“So a lot of that falls on me and an official,” Smart said. “I try to be as fair as I can, but I get a bunch of shenanigans from the offensive sideline if I call it sack. They all disagree with me so I try to put it on the official.”
That’s why they pay him the big bucks.
Get The Picture 
Out of context with the content, but “Hitting the wall” could be described as “Hitting the ball, into the water, five times in a row”. Poor dude.
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In context with the content…Looks like Kirby is doing a little tap dancing when it comes to criticizing Fields.
The thought comes that the kid is really impressive and CKS is walking a fine line to not treat him differently than the other true freshmen at the same time he is defending him openly.
Or maybe the whole thing is just CKS being real and honest and it is what it is. It does make sense.
This kid is a natural when it comes to seeing a running opportunity and seizing it. CKS knows he can do that. Having the play blown dead (when JF takes off) may be a way to encourage him to go through his progressions instead of following the instincts that he relied upon so well in high school. Kirby wants to see him throw the ball. He needs to see him throw the ball. Discipline.
Also, the more often he runs in live games, the greater the opportunity for an injury. So except for designed plays, running needs to be the final choice in his progressions.
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I remember when Young was at BYU, and Edwards said the hardest thing to get him to do was not just take off. Young obviously learned well. Pays to wait sometimes. But when one has a shitty offensive line(not the case at UGA or BYU back then) one wants to take off.
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That damn green jersey worn over the nomal pratice jersey drove every DL crazy. As we were being hit hard every damn play. Mike Cavan and Jack Mcgomery (sic) were never touched. The one play a practice were you finally got to the QB every coach was screaming, “stop, stop”. You knew that touching a green jersey would get you in a ton of bad stuff. I always thought it would be great to just go live, but not hit a QB below the waist (protect knees). But they did not ask me how I felt about the situation and I damn sure was not going to give them my opinion. Also when going live someone was going to roll up on a QB so maybe they were correct. But it still pisses me and it has only been 50 years.
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