Kirby Smart on critics of ‘cake walk’ schedule: ‘Come play it’

Much has been made of Georgia’s schedule for this upcoming season. From an outsider’s perspective, some would think that the defending champions have an easy route to their potential three-peat.

However, Kirby Smart says that any team can be his guest as far as playing the Bulldogs’ upcoming schedule. During his appearance at SEC Media Days, Smart says critics can “come right ahead” to play the conference slate that his team is going to face this fall.

“Come play it,” laughed Smart. “I mean I’d love to invite any team in the country who wants to play in the SEC to come right ahead.”

A major factor with Georgia’s schedule had to do with the loss of Oklahoma. With the Sooners coming to the Southeastern Conference in 2024, they were forced to cancel their previously scheduled 2023 trip to Norman. In turn, that ruined Smart’s plan of always kicking things off with a primetime matchup.

“I don’t get into comparisons year to year. But I’m a big believer in opening with a great game, a great kickoff game. We’ve done that repeatedly, we’ve scheduled that out,” explained Smart. “I think we’ve got UCLA, Ohio State, FSU, and Louisville all in coming years. Clemson next year. We had Oregon and we had Clemson before that.”

To be fair, Georgia’s schedule is favorable in more ways than one. For starters, eight of their 12 contests will come inside Sanford Stadium. Then, of their four road games, only one will come against a team that posted a winning record last year with their second-to-last game in Knoxville against Tennessee coming on November 18th.

Even so, Smart says that sort of thing is out of his hands. The only thing that Georgia can do now is play the schedule that’s in front of them in their efforts towards bringing even more trophies back to Athens.

“There’s a lot of things I can control. (But) I don’t control the narratives that people create outside of our building,” Smart said.

Finebaum says Georgia replaced Alabama as ‘safe’ pick for national championship

Georgia’s placement within the field of the College Football Playoff has become a fair assumption heading into this season. That’s because, according to Paul Finebaum, they’ve taken the top spot as far as being a safe pick to make it to and win the national championship.

Finebaum addressed the notion around Georgia these days with ‘McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning’ from SEC Media Days in Nashville on Tuesday. He said their ascension is similar to what Alabama used to create amongst prognosticators. Until they prove otherwise, he says their spot at the top means that they have earned the benefit of the doubt.

“I think that’s what happens when you’re in that number one spot and trending,” Finebaum said.

“It was like that with ‘Bama,” continued Finebaum. “There were some years where I said Alabama was going to win it all and I had no idea why. But making that statement had been very good to me.”