Dan Lanning helped build the Georgia Bulldogs defense that won the program a national championship last season and will take the field against Oregon on Saturday inside the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. He knows Georgia head coach Kirby Smart well.

Likewise, Georgia has a coach on staff who should know the Oregon offensive personnel pretty well, too. Bryan McLendon was the Ducks’ receivers coach on the previous coaching staff, and he served as the team’s interim head coach for the Alamo Bowl to close out the 2021 season. And, you know, it has a pretty good idea of what Lanning is going to bring to the table defensively.

All that familiarity, though… Lanning doesn’t see it factoring into the outcome of Saturday’s game.

“The biggest carryover is that I probably have a good feel for what they’re going to do defensively and how they’re going to do things,” Lanning said in his Monday evening press conference. “On the same note, they probably have a good feeling for how we’re going to do things defensively.

“Kirby Smart’s not gonna play a single snap on Saturday, and neither is Dan Lanning. Right? So it doesn’t really matter what I know. It matters what my players know and what they can execute.”

The annual Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game has turned into quite the back-and-forth well before the game even kicks off. Neither Lanning nor Georgia’s Smart released Week 1 depth charts ahead of the matchup.

Lanning has been coy about the team’s race for the starting quarterback position, but Smart said on Monday he knows who it will be that steps out on the field first.

Smart said there are some challenges in preparing for the Ducks, just in terms of not having much tape to go on, but those concerns are for the staff and not the players.

“You’re just trying to gather information, trying to figure out where the pieces will be, where is this guy going to play, and who is going to play,” he said. (And, thus, why we don’t have a depth chart.) “That’s for us to worry about as coaches. For the players, we’ve got to worry about what we’ve got to do. If I execute my assignment, what does it matter who is across from me? I’m not getting into the details of where he was at last year. I don’t care where he was at last year. I’m worried about what I’ve got to do to execute.”

Smart went on to say he doesn’t think the familiarity between coaches will affect the outcome, not when the talent is where it’s at on both rosters.

“Neither Dan nor I will be worried about each other during the game. It’s not about that,” Smart said. “At the end of the day it’s about how you execute. It’s not about Xs and Os. It’s about who has got the best players and do the best players play the best in the biggest moments.”

And Lanning would agree.

“Sometimes coaches try to get too cute,” the Oregon head coach said. “It’s gonna come down to takeaways, it’s gonna come down to explosive plays, right? Who can out-hit? Who can out-hustle? Who can tackle on the perimeter? That’s what this game is really about. And certainly, there’s going to be a schematic advantage on both sides, at times. But that’s not ultimately what it’s about. It’s about who can put their players in position to make plays.”

We’ll find out Saturday. Kickoff between No. 11 Oregon and No. 3 Georgia is at 12:30 p.m. PT.