I have no idea what Kirby Smart’s 2020 season is going to entail, and neither do you.

We don’t know if he’s going to beat Florida for the 4th consecutive year and get over the hump against Alabama. As much as Georgia fans want that to be the case, that’s not being etched in stone.

We don’t know if he’s finally going to lose to Florida and spend SEC Championship weekend in front of a TV for the first time since 2016. As much as Florida fans want that to be the case, that’s not being etched in stone, either.

The combination of replacing ace recruiter/offensive line coach Sam Pittman and 9 starters on offense made for an offseason full of more questions than answers.

But there’s 1 answer we have about Smart in 2020: Stubbornness won’t be the thing that holds Georgia back.

That was a key question for Smart to answer in a pivotal offseason before he begins Year 5 in Athens. Hiring someone like Scott Cochran was more of a sign that Smart was absolutely willing to shake things up.

Before you yell at your phone/tablet/computer that Smart obviously had to make some tweaks after the 2019 regular season ended with disappointment for the second consecutive year, understand this: Not everyone in Smart’s shoes would be willing to make significant changes.

In the past 3 years, Smart is 36-7 with a 21-3 mark in SEC play that includes 3 consecutive top 7 finishes. Those 2 Alabama losses went down to the wire and made many wonder could have been had Georgi properly executed a Cover 2 or a run-of-the-mill punt on 4th-and-11. Smart could have trotted out to the SEC Media Days podium and said, “we’re right there. A bounce here or a bounce there, and we’re having a different conversation right now. We’re trusting our process.”

We are having a different conversation about Georgia football heading into 2020. But that’s because Smart is not accepting the status quo. He’s putting his chips in the middle and going all in.

Hiring Cochran to an on-field role is part of that. There’s absolutely risk in hiring someone without on-field experience to fill one of those 10 spots. There’s also risk in poaching someone who has been on Nick Saban’s staff since he arrived at Alabama … especially in a year in which Georgia plays Alabama in the regular season. A certain “poking the bear” phrase comes to mind.

But why did Smart make a major move like that? It could yield major results. Cochran can motivate in a different way than Smart, he can bring even more of those Alabama principles to Georgia and maybe, just maybe, he’ll make Alabama a touch weaker.

There’s another potential benefit. One former Alabama assistant told The Athletic that Cochran was the reason, despite all the talent in Tuscaloosa, players rarely transferred. That’s not all that surprising considering that strength coaches spend more time with the players than the head coaches. Even though that won’t be his role at Georgia, Smart decided his former co-worker was the type of person he wanted on his staff (Smart tried to hire Cochran to be the strength coach when he was hired, but Cochran got a raise to stay at Alabama).

Smart knew that Alabama didn’t have an on-field position to offer Cochran, who reportedly wants to become a head coach, and he used that to his advantage. As a result, Smart is getting someone who might not be a natural fit from an experience standpoint but is exactly the motivated type of person he needs in that locker room.

I mean, Cochran is the guy who smashed a national runner-up trophy:

If that isn’t exactly what Georgia fans want to see, I don’t know what is.

Cochran was part of the staff overhaul that took shape in Athens this offseason. All of it, at least it seems, was done to bring in a new type of energy.

Pittman’s departure for Arkansas wasn’t a move Smart drew up, but he turned to the fiery Matt Luke to fill his spot. As we saw in the Sugar Bowl, Luke isn’t lacking the passion to get back to his roots as an offensive line coach.

Obviously, the move that’s going to continue to dominate the offseason conversation was stripping James Coley of play-calling duties and hiring Air Raid supporter Todd Monken to take over the offense. For about a month after the season ended, it looked like Smart was going to run it back with Coley after a failed first year of the post-Jim Chaney era. That would have been a move straight out of the stubborn coach handbook.

Instead, Smart decided he didn’t care about hurting feelings and that a philosophical change was needed. He was right. Maybe it was getting beat like a drum against LSU in the SEC Championship that made Smart realize that. Seeing an assistant like Joe Brady come from the NFL and overhaul LSU’s dated offense shouldn’t have been lost on Smart, and as it turned out, it wasn’t. Monken might not prove to be the 2020 version of Brady, but seeing if he can get there was far more attractive than another year of Coley.

All of these decisions suggest that another year like the past 3 won’t be good enough for Smart.

Nobody would have given him the benefit of the doubt in 2020 just because he lost 9 starters on offense. Why? Well, when you sign No. 1 classes in 2 of the past 3 years, the expectation remains sky-high. And yes, just like in 2019, the defensive-minded Smart would have taken heat if the offense looked inexperienced.

Nobody would have said, “well, Jake Fromm is gone, so we get it if Georgia takes a step back.” Smart went out and did something he hasn’t done yet as a head coach. That is, turn to a quarterback who was developed elsewhere. Sure, it was risky for Smart to roll the dice on the Monken-Jamie Newman marriage working in the SEC in 2020, especially with that schedule. But hey, ask Ed Orgeron about if his Brady-Joe Burrow marriage was a risk worth taking.

Smart entered the new decade with a new perspective. By virtue of his personnel hires, he showed that he was willing to evolve. Good. He needed to. Most people with 4 years of FBS head coaching experience don’t have everything figured out.

Even Saban, who had 2 decades of head coaching experience at the time, made the bold decision in 2014 to let Lane Kiffin modernize his offense. That was at the foundation of 4 consecutive national championship appearances and 2 titles from 2015-18.

There’s no guarantee that Smart’s offseason shakeup will lead to even 1 national title. But for somebody who has been criticized for getting in his own head when it comes to his in-game decisions, this was a welcome sight. Cochran, Monken and Newman are all signs that Smart is far from satisfied. Those moves say more than what Smart could say at a press conference or in some leaked practice video screaming that he wants to, um, “f—– eat.”

Smart is indeed hungry. To his credit, he’s trying a new recipe.

Leftovers just won’t cut it in 2020.