'Kirby vs. Kelly' Round 3: Does it play out differently?

Kirby Smart seems to say he has respect for every coach he plays. Whether he truly means that every week or not is up for debate, but there is reason to question why Smart would respect Brian Kelly. That’s because twice did Kelly-coached Notre Dame teams give his Georgia Bulldogs a fight to the finish. In 2017 it took a Rodrigo Blankenship field goal with 3:34 to go to take the lead in South Bend and a Davin Bellamy strip sack to hold on for a 20-19 win. Then, in 2019 on the return trip for the Irish, Notre Dame took a lead into halftime and had a shot at winning late at Sanford Stadium. Georgia won that one 23-17 in what was an incredible atmosphere.

Now, Kelly is at LSU, finishing up his first season with the Bayou Bengals. Nobody expected the Tigers to get to the point of representing the SEC West in Atlanta this quickly. They won games when it mattered most – taking down Ole Miss and Alabama in late October and early November with both teams ranked in the top-10 at the time of the win. That’s helped set the stage for ‘Kirby vs. Kelly’ round three on Saturday in Atlanta.

“I think they were great matchups,” Smart said on Thursday when asked about the previous games against Kelly and what they meant to him as he continued to build Georgia’s program into what it is today. “They were national exposure game. Any time you’re playing Notre Dame, it’s not just about Brian Kelly, it’s about Notre Dame’s name across the country. Certainly helps you maybe recruit across the country, become a national brand, play on a national stage. That’s what it gave us an opportunity to do. Both hard-fought, physical football games in both cases. Got a lot of respect for Notre Dame’s program. I thought it was great college ball to have Notre Dame and Georgia matched in those two games.”

“I’ve always had respect for Brian Kelly’s teams, going way back to when we played him at Notre Dame,” he added earlier in the week. “They had very high quality preparation, coaching staff. They do a great job in all areas. He’s very organized. He has a process. He knows how to run a program.”

Asked what looks different about Kelly’s LSU team as opposed to his Notre Dame teams of the past, the thing that stands out to Smart is the caliber of athletes. Kids from Louisiana, one of the most talent-rich states in the country, want to stay home and play for the Tigers. That’s helping Kelly out in year one for sure.

On the flip side of things is Kelly himself. He’s made the move from South Bend to Baton Rouge and has taken his team to the heights nobody expected. Now on the opposite sideline is a coach he’s 0-2 against in his career.

“They’re really good and well-coached. Good players. Very competitive games. One of them was home, one of them was away. They were great atmospheres. It’s just really good college football,” Kelly said when asked the same question about what he remembers from 2017 and 2019 and coaching against Kirby Smart. “Look, it’s going to be a similar situation. We’re going to play a physical football team that has the style of its head coach. They’re going to play great defense. They’re going to be physical on both sides of the ball. That’s the nature of a well-coached football team that’s won a national championship and is competing for another.”

“You know what you’re going to get here. I mean, everything’s going to come very difficult. Nothing’s going to be easy,” he added. “You’re going to have to earn everything. Quite frankly, that’s the exciting part about it. You know what you’re going to get. You’re going to get a really well-coached football team, fundamentally sound, and they’re going to play hard for four quarters and it’s going to challenge your football team to play its very best as well. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Kelly might be right. It doesn’t get better than two coaches that know each other’s styles and know how to prepare to play against one another. This Georgia team is different than those Georgia teams were though. Jim Chaney and James Coley, the respective offensive coordinators in 2017 and 2019, are gone, and Todd Monken brings a new-look to Athens. That’s somebody Kelly’s plenty familiar with too, having coached with him at Grand Valley State in 1989 and 1990. Then on the defensive side of the football, Dan Lanning is gone, but it’s still the same Kirby Smart style that the Bulldogs bring to the table.

Does all that result in the same outcome as the previous two meetings? Maybe. Kelly probably wouldn’t be happy with it, but it definitely would mean a closer game than Vegas expects. Or does Smart’s new-age Georgia that now has a National Championship to its name and the change-over to LSU for Kelly mean we’ll see the game play out differently? Also possible. Saturday comes soon enough, and then, we’ll know the answer.