Paul Finebaum: Kirby Smart 'embraced the disrespect' to beat SEC's 'hot new toy' Texas

Kirby Smart won his 100th SEC game as head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday, defeating No. 1 Texas 30-15 on the road.

Georgia’s dominance over the past three and a half seasons has been well-documented. However, after losing to Alabama earlier this season it’s almost as if people forgot the Bulldogs had won two-straight national titles and have lost just one regular season game over that span. Paul Finebaum admitted to doing the same, which he believes added fuel to Smart’s fire heading into Saturday.

“Kirby Smart loved, embraced the disrespect,” Finebaum said on SportsCenter on Sunday morning. “Any time you do that to a champion, to someone who is great, they dig down. And I sat on a set yesterday, just as others did in Austin, and everyone disrespected Georgia. Why did we do it? Because Texas was the hot new toy. We all gravitated, we all coalesced around Steve Sarkisian and [Quinn] Ewers and even Arch [Manning] and said, ‘They’re the new champions.’

“And what had they really done? They beat a very bad Oklahoma team. They beat a very mediocre Michigan team in the Big House, and we all just said, ‘Forget Georgia.’ Forget what Kirby smart has done the last couple of years in building the best program in college football — and even with Nick Saban coaching last year. And that just drove Kirby Smart crazy. He used it and that’s what happened last night.”

Georgia’s loss to the Crimson Tide appeared to be a breakout performance from Alabama under first-year head coach Kalen DeBoer. However, after losing to Vanderbilt the following week, it was Texas who was the last team standing when it came to undefeated teams in the SEC.

Buzz naturally gravitated toward Austin, and even Vegas had the Longhorns as four-point favorites over the Bulldogs at home.

Many believed a victory over the Bulldogs would solidify Texas as a notch above the rest, which is why the victory couldn’t have come at a better time for Smart and his Bulldogs. That’s the storyline that was created and Georgia came in and reminded everyone they belong at the forefront of college football.

The path to an SEC Championship berth is much clearer after the victory and with five games left on Georgia’s regular season schedule, Kirby Smart’s squad has to be mentioned when discussing national championship favorites after Week 8.