DESTIN, Fla. – Kirby Smart stopped a reporter mid-question during his interview session Tuesday at the SEC Spring Meetings.
No, he does not know if the College Football Playoffs will expand past its current field of four teams. Smart just wants his team to be in the conversation, whatever the situation may be.
“I know where you’re going. People have misstated that I believe it’s going to go to this. I have no clue. I'm a company man along with the SEC, that what we have works. I’m not forecasting this,” Smart said. “What I'm forecasting is we’re going to have a strength of schedule that’s going to allow us one, two, three, four, eight teams to be one of the teams in the conversation because of who we play.”
To say the Bulldogs have stepped it up over the next 10-plus years as far as their non-conference schedule is concerned, would obviously be a huge understatement.
Over the past few months, Georgia has massively upgraded its home schedule, agreeing to home-and-homes with the likes of Oklahoma (2023, 2031), two with Clemson (at Clemson in 2029 and 2033 with the Tigers coming to Athens in 2030 and 2032); Texas (2028 in Austin and 2029 in Athens), UCLA (2025 in Pasadena and 2026 in Athens) and Florida State (2027 in Tallahassee and 2028 in Athens).
The Bulldogs also have future games set at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta against Virginia (2020), Oregon (2022), and Clemson (2024).
“The naysayers will say an extra loss is going to cost you,” Smart said. “My argument is the men in that room, the women in that room on that committee are going to have to balance somebody that goes out and plays three non-conference Power Five teams. We felt strongly it was important to do it.”
For those wondering, yes, Smart’s taken a hands-on approach when it comes to scheduling the teams on Georgia’s future dockets, with Director of Player Operations Josh Lee handling the responsibly of lining up the games.
“I think going out and playing tougher opponents is a good thing. I don’t run from that competition. I think it’s the best thing for the game. If you look at dwindling attendance, the opportunity to go recruit, to play on a big stage,” Smart said, “I think the conference schedule we play is plenty tough enough. Let me be sure and say that. Extremely tough, as a matter of fact. But I want Georgia on the national stage playing against great competition. If you recruit well and you have 85 scholarship players, you should have the depth. We’ve got the rule now that you can play four games and still redshirt. We’ve got access to a larger pool of players. I think that’s important when you go and play these kinds of schedules.”
Other schools are starting to follow suit.
Arch-rival Florida has future series with Colorado and Texas, while Alabama has home-and-homes with Texas, Notre Dame, West Virginia, and Oklahoma in the years to come.
Smart was asked if he expects more schools to follow this route.
“I don’t know. It will depend on the effect of everybody else and how they schedule moving forward. It really will depend on how we play. I certainly think if two teams have an equal record, the tougher conference schedule and the tougher out-of-conference schedule is going to be weighted. They look at that now,” he said. “You look at the history of the decisions they make, it has a lot to do with it. When you play matters because momentum works into that. They do studies across the time they have it, and it will continue to be that way. Somebody that plays a big game in December may be more valuable than somebody that plays a big game in September.”
