Kirby Smart doesn’t want to see SEC Championship axed despite growing schedule
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DALLAS — Kirby Smart and his Georgia Bulldogs will play 12 regular-season games in 2024. If all goes well, they’ll play a 13th at the SEC Championship. If they were to earn a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff, they’d play as many as 16 games in a season. A team that doesn’t get 1 of the 4 byes could play as many as 17 games in a season. And the CFP might not even be done expanding.
The Georgia head coach was asked on Tuesday if he’d be in favor of eliminating conference championship games to make room for the expanded CFP and he offered an emphatic no.
“I’m not for doing that. I still find value in winning an SEC Championship,” Smart said during his trip around the main stage at SEC Media Days. “Do I worry about attrition in terms of having more games? I worry about attrition with 4 teams (in the CFP).”
Smart said the SEC Championship Game is one of the most meaningful games his program plays. He said teams would miss it if it was gone. And he called the event “one of the greatest venues in college sports.”
Georgia has played in 6 of the last 7 SEC title games. Though Smart has only won 2 of those games, that hasn’t proven to be a barrier to winning a national championship. It also hasn’t cheapened the experience in Atlanta either.
“The games we played in Atlanta have been some of the best, most memorable games,” Smart said.
Related: Georgia has the shortest odds of any team to make the SEC Championship Game (-160) and is the favorite to win the conference in 2024 (+200) at DraftKings.
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Last November, a report from Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger quoted multiple conference commissioners questioning the future of conference championship games. At the time, there was concern from some about playing a 13th game that had reduced stakes, per Dellenger. If both teams competing in the game were going to receive berths in the CFP regardless of the result, what’s the point of playing the game?
“As the conference with the most experience conducting conference championship games, we continue to believe it is an important part of determining a conference champion,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Dellenger last year. “The [expanded playoff] system is predicated on conference champions being identified in a clear way. As things change, we’ve had the conversation, but what I’ve described to you is the overall destination of that dialogue.”
When Sankey spoke at SEC Media Days on Monday, eliminating the conference title wasn’t a topic that was brought up.
An expanding schedule will assuredly usher in change somewhere, be it the way programs approach their season or approach recruiting. Does the Georgia coach try to build a stronger roster? “I don’t know if that’s the case,” Smart said. He did mention that fall camp can’t change for Georgia — it has to remain demanding and physical.
“The way we go about practicing is critical. I believe in having a physical, tough camp. I don’t think you back off about that. If you do, it may not matter about those (late) games,” Smart said. “If you’re not physical enough at the line of scrimmage and tough enough and you don’t demand excellence… because during the season there is only so much we can do to create the toughness that we need at the line of scrimmage and the toughness we need as an overall football team.”
Attrition, as Smart said, is already something that impacts teams. But as the schedule grows, a greater emphasis should land on recruiting and development. And everything goes into that — operations, staffing, NIL commitment.
“You have to do a good job maintaining your roster, staying healthy, practicing the right way, being smart,” Smart said. “I think being a watchdog is part of my job. I’m not a coordinator anymore. I want to watch the drills, see how we practice, make sure we can maintain health. It’s hard to do in the SEC. That’s why you get a chance to recruit to 85 scholarships, so that you have depth.
“Can you get your younger players ready faster than your opponent? That’s a huge advantage.”
Smart was also asked if they’ll approach games differently. Does it become more important to build up leads and get in-game reps for players who wouldn’t otherwise see action? For Georgia, Smart said nothing changes.
“I think every coach is reflecting right now, okay, we may have a longer schedule, we certainly have a tougher schedule. How we play games is play to win. How we play at the end of the game, if we have leads, we’re always looking to get guys opportunities and grow players — like Carson Beck getting in a lot of games when he was behind Stetson (Bennett) so they’re ready when their opportunity comes.”
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
