Kirby Smart knows exactly what he wants to see from his freshmen over the next few weeks.

The Bulldogs’ 2025 signing class is getting their first taste of preseason camp. August is Athens is a notorious grind that is a huge adjustment for players coming out of high school.

So what is Smart looking for? Well, it’s a little bit more complicated than blocking technique or filling gaps.

“Mindset. It’s the only thing they can work on,” Smart said on July 31 during his first preseason press conference. “They’re going to be overwhelmed by the speed, the tempo of practice. Can I fail, and can I pick up and go again? And it’s been seen over and over again. These NFL guys come in, how does he learn, how does he learn, how does he learn? Like, if they come from our program, they’re going to learn well. They’ve had to learn well.”

There’s a reason Smart wants to see how his freshmen respond to adversity.

Many Bulldog players come to Athens with high expectations. That can be tough to handle, especially when they make mistakes that are inevitable for first-year players.

Smart wants to see how they handle that.

“So many of them come in with, because of social media, heavy accolades, heavy expectations,” Smart said. “The drop from how high they come in to where they fall to when they fail is so deep in depth that it’s really hard to build them back. So we have to be really careful as coaches that we’re making sure we point out when they do things right. And make sure we explain to them that it’s okay to fail.”

That realization is necessary to break through as a freshman. KJ Bolden, Nate Frazier, and Chris Cole played major roles for the Bulldogs in 2024 after going through their first fall camp.

Smart is starting to see similar signs from some of the Class of 2025.

“You actually grow through that failure. A lot of our guys are starting to realize that,” Smart said.