Kirby Smart downplays concerns about Georgia's strength of schedule

Georgia‘s strength of schedule, or lack thereof, has been put into question ahead of the 2023 season.

As the defending two-time national champions, the Bulldogs should be playing the best of the best — instead, they’re expected to cruise to the College Football Playoff for the third consecutive season.

“All we can do is go out and try to schedule the best we can, and when we scheduled the game with Oklahoma, we were trying to do that,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said. “We were trying to create this identity that we wanted to play our conference schedule, we wanted to play Georgia Tech and we wanted to play others. We lost out on that because of a realignment, adding teams to the conference, and that just is what it is.

“I certainly don’t concern myself with the thoughts of College Football Playoff committee because I don’t have any control over it.”

The main reason Georgia’s strength of schedule is fairly easy compared to its conference counterparts is that the Bulldogs don’t play any marquee non-conference games.

That’s not particularly Georgia’s fault, however, as the Bulldogs weren’t able to play Oklahoma, as Smart had mentioned, because the home-and-home series was set for 2023 and 2031, and wouldn’t make sense with them being in the same conference beginning in 2024.

Still, games against UT Martin, Ball State, UAB and Georgia Tech for their entire non-conference slate aren’t going to get the Bulldogs very far in the eyes of the College Football Playoff committee. That means the Bulldogs are banking on going undefeated during the regular season, otherwise, they could miss out on the playoff entirely.

Although, Smart is not concerning himself with those scenarios — he just wants his squad to go out and play the schedule at hand and worry about the rest later. SEC road games against Auburn and Tennessee, as well as matchups against Florida, Kentucky and Ole Miss at home, among others, should be more than enough to keep the Bulldogs afloat.

After all, there’s a reason Georgia’s over/under win total is set at 11.5 heading into the season. They’re expected to win every game, especially with this schedule, but that’s nothing against the teams they play. But if that’s the case, as it has been the past two seasons, they are sure to be the favorites to win the national title for a third consecutive season.