Why 2021 isn’t a make-or-break season for Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs
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The most loathsome word in sports is “narrative.”
All it really means is enough pundits — your favorite TV personalities, podcasters and writers — have repeated a similar stance so many times it catches on as some purported truism.
Case in point: This is a make-or-break season for the “underachieving” Kirby Smart and Georgia Bulldogs.
“If they can’t win it this year — with a great schedule and a loaded roster — they’ll never win another championship at Georgia.”
It’s a chef’s kiss take: Spicy without a single side of nuance.
Some folks have even take the argument a step further and insinuated that the Bulldogs may need to look for a new coach soon because why should Smart be given more runway if he can’t win a title this fall?
Yes, the 1980 jokes have written themselves all the times UGA has jumped on a rake the past two decades, but the notion that 2021 is a do-or-die year for its head coach and the program is absurd. It’s literally a false narrative that is not based in reality.
And yet, it has become a proverbial talking point among some of the loudest voices in the sport this offseason.
Here’s a brief rundown of Kirby Smart’s accomplishments in his first 5 seasons at his alma mater: An SEC title, a 4-2 bowl/Playoff record including 3 New Year’s 6 bowl wins, the second-highest winning percentage in the SEC behind Alabama, 3 division titles, multiple No. 1 recruiting classes and a brutal overtime loss in the national championship game.
The Bulldogs have finished in the top 7 of the AP poll — No. 7, No. 4, No. 7, No. 2 — each of the past 4 seasons and have a pair of 5-star quarterbacks waiting in the wings after 2021.
That’s pretty darn good, right? Did you just read anything that indicates the program or its head coach is about to fall off a cliff?
Now this is not some sweeping defense of Smart, who has certainly made his fair share of coaching mistakes (see: South Carolina in 2018, Justin Fields’ fake punt in the SEC Championship, etc.) over his first 5 seasons, but it’s wild that he and the Bulldogs are being held to this bizarre binary standard — title or bust in 2021 — compared to the expectations surrounding a very similar national power in Oklahoma.
Why is that?
Sure, the college football media loves Lincoln Riley. I love Lincoln Riley. But like Smart and UGA, Oklahoma has also lost a couple of games it wasn’t supposed to under its wunderkind play-caller. Riley also actually dropped a head-to-head matchup against Smart and has never won a Playoff game. Yet the national media isn’t saying Riley will never win a championship with the Sooners if he doesn’t do it in 2021 with an awesome team and the potential No. 1 pick at quarterback.
Again, why is that?
Because it’s a dishonest argument. Riley shouldn’t be held to those standards and neither should Smart and UGA.
Smart loves to say, “pressure is a privilege,” and that’s true, but don’t confuse internal lofty aspirations with a predisposed edict from folks outside Butts-Mehre.
“It has to happen or else” and “you can hear the clock ticking” are nothing but lazy 6-word phrases.
No matter the results in 2021, the future is bright for Smart and the Bulldogs. While the ultimate goal for the program is to snap its 41-year championship drought, it’s not a red-light indicator that it will never happen if they don’t. Georgia has a cake conference schedule this year, but it might be the only team in the country saddled with needing to beat Clemson and/or Alabama twice to win the title.
So what if Smart becomes the first former assistant to beat Nick Saban but still loses to the Tide or whoever in the Playoff. Does that equate to “failed season” in Athens?
I guess it depends on those noisy “narratives.”
Here’s what’s true: Kirby Smart was hired to win a national championship at Georgia. Period. But only one team can win a title each season and Smart has the Bulldogs firmly in the mix now and for the foreseeable future. That “narrative” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as sharply, though.
Jesse Simonton is a college football writer who has covered the SEC previously for the Miami Herald, SEC Country, volquest.com and elsewhere. Follow Jesse on Twitter @JesseReSimonton.
