Kirby Smart criticizes College Football Playoff committee's 'unjust' criteria: 'I don't know what they're looking for'

The Georgia Bulldogs found themselves ranked 10th in the latest College Football Playoff selection committee’s rankings. It’s a placement that has seemed to frustrate head coach Kirby Smart.

While speaking to the media during the weekly SEC teleconference, Smart was critical of the selection committee’s criteria, calling it unjust. He also made it clear that he was frustrated with how the eye test and strength of schedule are being viewed.

“It’s a hard one because I don’t know what they’re looking for,” Kirby Smart said. “They can’t define that. It’s not simple, either. I mean, anybody can be on that committee and say, ‘This is what we’re looking for. This is our criteria and there’s so much that it overlaps things and everybody debates it and I don’t have time to really waste energy on it.”

Georgia currently has the 45th-ranked scoring offense in the country and the 16th-ranked scoring defense in the country. That’s come against one of the toughest schedules in the country, which Smart thinks should be accounted for when evaluating teams.

“So, I think it’s more than your non-conference games and who you play, it just seems unjust to me when you evaluate somebody’s got a third-ranked defense or somebody’s got a fifth-ranked defense, well don’t you think their defense is dictated by who they played on offense? And how many top offenses they played? Because last time I checked, our offense and our defense have played the top offenses and defenses across the country. Well, you’re not gonna be ranked as high if you play top ones than if you player lower ranked ones, and that’s what gets me,” Smart said.

“They talk about the eye test. How do you play in the game? Well, how you play in the game is dictated by where you’re playing — home or away — and who you’re playing. That’s the two number one indicators of how you play. It’s who you’re playing, who you line up across from that matters. But point differential, I don’t believe they look at just that. I don’t know if that’s actually the case. They’re looking at the whole picture of how you play and that’s dictated by who you play.”

If the current College Football Playoff rankings held up, Georgia would be in the Playoff as the 11-seed. That means the Bulldogs would have a first round road trip to make. Of course, there are still two weeks and the conference championship games to go, so there is time for more shakeups.

For Kirby Smart and Georgia, there won’t be another opportunity to beat an SEC opponent. They finish the season with games against UMass and Georgia Tech. The hope is to be impressive in those wins and continue to build on the eye test.