Kirby Smart defends state of college football officiating

Officiating can be a hot-button topic in college football, but Kirby Smart has immense respect for the job the sport’s referees do.

Ahead of the national title game, the Georgia leader defended the state of college football officiating, elaborating on how tough the job is to do.

“I think there’s times to look at that. And I’m very process-oriented where it’s, like, okay, we’re going to play the season, and we’re going to go back review it, just like we do. How did we play third down? How did we do on offense and short yardage and goal line? You do the same thing in officiating. Fortunately, I’m on a committee that gets to sit in Indianapolis for two days in a room full of people and officials and we analyze that. There’s a time and place for that,” explained Smart. “How do I stand on it right now? I’d rather evaluate it when I’m in a vacuum and able to look at it without saying right now. Because I only know my league. I think the SEC does an incredible job of officiating, and I’ve got a lot of respect for the job they do.

“It’s easy to sit back on Twitter and Instagram and talk about officials. Until you’ve gone out there and done it and you’ve got to make split-second decisions, I think they do a phenomenal job of self-critiquing so they get it right. But it’s not easy.”

While Smart’s take is as level-headed as it gets when it comes to officiating, that’s not going to stop Georgia faithful from being angry when a call doesn’t go their way.

Regardless, Kirby Smart knows the Bulldogs must take their fate into their own hands, not leaving it up to officiating. They’ve done that all season long, and nobody should expect that to change on Monday.

Kirby Smart provides initial impressions of TCU ahead of national title game

After narrowly escaping Ohio State in their College Football Playoff semifinal, all that stands between the Georgia Bulldogs and their quest to become back-to-back national champions are the TCU Horned Frogs. 

As Georgia prepares for their upcoming title bout, head coach Kirby Smart provided his initial impressions of TCU.

“Yeah, tremendous team, tremendous program,” said Smart. “He’s won wherever he’s been. He’s done a great job. Their kids believe. They have, I feel like just reading and listening about them, a lot of similarities to our kids in terms of the culture created there, the way they play, the way they believe. I think I saw a stat; they have the most comebacks in college football in the fourth quarter. And that shows what your mental makeup is.

“Their conference has been in a lot of tight ball games, and they’ve won those tight ball games. And done an incredible job with what they do. And they create really tough situations defensively, do an incredible job on special teams. Have one of the best returners I’ve ever faced in the return game and score a lot of points on offense with the Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback. So it’s a recipe to be playing for the national championship.”

TCU showed that they more than belonged in the national championship conversation by defeating the only other undefeated team, the Michigan Wolverines. If Smart and his Bulldogs want to finish the year as national champions, then they cannot take the Horned Frogs lightly.

On3’s Justin Rudolph contributed to this article.