Last week, Kirby Smart called one of his own players “an idiot, I mean, just stupid.” On Saturday, he extended that assessment to the entire College Football Playoff committee.
The Georgia coach seems to have run out of patience with just about everyone. Call it the high-pressure life of the playoff bubble.
Football coaches are used to winning all arguments, at least internally. But when it comes to the play-offs, they are powerless. Expect the rants, tirades and insults to increase from across the country as Selection Sunday approaches.
As for that Georgia player’s mistake? Caught on camera after the Bulldogs’ Nov. 9 loss to Ole Miss, she excitedly greeted some family friends wearing Rebel gear. The player apologized and offered a reasonable explanation. Smart said he was also sorry: “I shouldn’t have called the kid an idiot.”
The committee may not respond well to Smart’s opinion — namely that Georgia shouldn’t have dropped nine spots (and out of the hypothetical playoff field) in last week’s rankings because of that loss.
Georgia, now 8-2 after an impressive 31-17 win over Tennessee, will find out what the committee thinks this week when the new rankings are released Tuesday night on ESPN. Not that Smart was willing to wait patiently.
‘I don’t know what they’re looking for. I really don’t,” Smart said immediately after the win over Tennessee. “I wish they could really define the criteria. I wish they could do the eyeball test where they come out here and look at the people we were playing against and look at them. You don’t see stuff like that on TV…
“We’re trying to be the cumulative, complete, quality team and not be on this emotional roller coaster driven by people in a room somewhere who may not understand football as much as we do as coaches.”
There’s an old saying among lawyers: When you have the facts on your side, pay attention to the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table.
Smart needs to stop beating the table because he has the facts on his side: Georgia should be well positioned to reach the playoffs despite these two losses.
The Dawgs played four of the committee’s top 11 teams and five of the top 20, with wins over Clemson at a neutral site, at Texas and at home over Tennessee. That’s the best three-pack of wins of anyone in the country. Their two losses are at No. 10 Alabama and at No. 11 Ole Miss.
Smart should argue that Georgia should not be punished for playing such a difficult, top-heavy schedule, especially while other schools are rewarded for not facing such a similar challenge.
No. 3 Texas is 9-1, but with no wins over a currently ranked team and a 30-15 loss to…Georgia. No. No. 4 Penn State is 9-1, but their only significant win is against No. 24 Illinois. No. No. 5 Indiana is 10-0 and the best story in the sport outside of Army, but they haven’t beaten anyone of substance (the Hoosiers can switch at No. 2 Ohio State that Saturday).
This is not an overly kind assessment of the SEC as a whole. Far from it. Some SEC schedules – namely Texas and Texas A&M – have proven weak. This is about putting respect on the gauntlet that the Bulldogs have uniquely faced.
Should they have just played softer teams to protect their record? Would that be preferable? Is this about amassing as few losses as possible or about proving yourself against repeated challenges, even in the face of setbacks?
Look, the weekly rankings during the season are a credibility-undermining exercise for the committee. It’s like judging a half-baked cake. Every week they are forced to make (and then defend) contradictions. Angry coaches use them as a motivational pinata. The committee is put on the defensive, eroding public confidence.
It doesn’t mean they ‘might not understand football’.
The 13-member group includes four former coaches: Chris Ault (Nevada), Jim Grobe (Wake Forest, Baylor, Ohio), Mike Riley (Oregon State, Nebraska) and Gary Pinkel (Toledo, Missouri). There are also three former players: Will Shields (Nebraska, NFL), Randall McDaniel (Arizona State, NFL) and chairman Warde Manual, the athletic director at Michigan, where he also played.
When Manual stated last week that one of the concerns about Georgia was “their offense has not been consistent. … They’ve been struggling with some turnover,” was he wrong?
The Dawgs were coming off a 10-point offensive effort against the Rebels and had turned the ball over nine times in the previous three games. Quarterback Carson Beck had thrown 12 interceptions in his previous six games.
The offense came together against Tennessee. Presumably they will be rewarded for this.
If Smart wants to fight for his team, he must challenge the sport to explain what it really wants to be about.
Should competition be rewarded? What about aggressive non-conference scheduling? Or should it be about playing patsies and hoping your oversized conference spits out a favorable schedule?
The SEC (16 teams) and Big Ten (18 teams) have grown so large that there is no consistency in competing against the teams. It could be a glove. It could be a cakewalk.
If the quality of a team’s wins is more important than just the quantity of wins, then Georgia should be in the playoff and future teams will have to consider the importance of adding some non-conference challenges to impress the committee.
That would be good for the sport. It should be good enough for this committee.
No need to offend, Kirby.
Just examine the facts.
