The last time Kirby Smart met with the media who cover the Bulldogs before late Tuesday morning, his Georgia football team had just gotten off the field after a 63-3 drilling of Florida State in the Orange Bowl

In the 10-plus weeks since, the Bulldogs coaching staff lost and replaced three coaches for four total, brought its total to seven incoming transfers and welcomed 22 early enrollees to campus.

“It’s a big group of guys,” Smart said. “It’s almost one-third of your team that keeps turning over each year. …When March hits, you get to actually go out there and practice football.”

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Smart and the Bulldogs did that Tuesday afternoon in a practice that was closed to the meida. He said his spring goal is to expand “our roster of winning football players.”

Here are three things we learned about the Bulldogs ahead of that first spring practice:

Florida transfer Trevor Etienne fitting in even with viral comment

Not everything that is said on the “Real Talk” podcast that Georgia offensive guard Tate Ratledge co-hosts makes it through the editing process.

A spicy comment from former Florida running back Trevor Ettiene, now at Georgia, did make it to YouTube.

“I guess that was something that we didn’t catch right away,” Ratledge said Tuesday.

Here’s what Etieene said on the thinking behind leaving Florida for Georgia.

“Pretty much to sum it up, it was like, I can either be running back 2 on a losing team or go somewhere — I wanted to play in December, too,” he said. “That also played a big part in me transferring. So I said, 'I can stay Running Back 2 on a losing team or go somewhere and possibly be Running Back 1 and win a natty.'"

Ratledge said that comment “ended up going big but I don’t think it got too big as some of the other stuff has that should have probably been taken out.”

Smart had nothing but praise for his new likely RB1.

“Everything that we heard about Etienne before he got here has held true,” Smart said. “He’s a tremendous leader. He’s a high character kid. He immediately surges into a leadership role because he’s not a first-year player. He’s been in our league. He’s been in our conference. He has standards and expectations.”

Injured Georgia Bulldog LB Smael Mondon moves into leader role

Smael Mondon will serve as a team leader during his senior season even if that means the inside linebacker had to roll into the former team meeting room Tuesday to meet the media on a scooter.

He wore a boot on his left foot after undergoing surgery for a stress fracture this offseason.

Mondon won’t practice this spring. If not for his injury, he may have declared for the NFL draft.

“That played a large part in that for him returning to be healthy,” Smart said.

Mondon was tied for the team lead in tackles last season with 68 before sitting out the Orange Bowl a year after leading the Bulldogs with 76. He was a second team All-SEC selection last season.

“It was like nagging injuries throughout the season,” he said. “I ended up breaking it at the end of the year.”

Georgia lost starting inside linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson, who was close to Mondon, to the transfer portal.

“It’s just like a friend moving on,” Mondon said. “We still talk on the phone, we still text. We were actually playing a game the other day together. It’s not like I lost a friend and he just went into space of something like that.”

Dumas-Johnson landed at Kentucky, but the Bulldogs had young talent at the position that he would have had to compete with for snaps in C.J. Allen and Raylen Wilson. The Bulldogs also brought in freshmen linebackers Justin Williams, Chris Cole and Kristopher Smith.

High praise for Dell McGee from Georgia football coach Kirby Smart

Dell McGee’s departure last month to become the head coach at Georgia State took away one of two assistant coaches that had been with Smart for all eight of his Georgia season.

Smart seemed happy he was able to hold onto the running backs coach for so long.

“I kind of been anticipating that with Coach McGee for a long time,” Smart said. “He was deserving a long time ago. He had not gotten his opportunity until now. He’ll seize that opportunity and do a great job.”

Smart, who led Georgia to two national championships and took another team to the title game, said of McGee: “There’s nobody I relied on more heavily through the last nine years, eight years, than Dell McGee. I’m so excited for him to get this opportunity. It’s something he always aspired to do.”

Josh Crawford, the wide receivers coach at Georgia Tech, was hired to replace McGee as running backs coach.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Three things from first day of Georgia football spring practices