ATHENS — Kirby Smart has gotten his team back into the College Football Playoff for a second consecutive season.
Yet he was not in a celebratory mood when speaking to ESPN on Sunday. The Georgia coach was already focused on what comes next for the Bulldogs.
“The first thing we’re gonna do is try to heal, recover, final exams, and then take a deep dive at looking in ourselves and maybe see some areas we can grow in,” Smart said. “But it’s a long thought process about that, a lot of debate last year. I think none of the teams with byes won, if that’s correct. So there’s a lot of thought there, a lot of texting going on between coaches who did it last year, trying to find maybe a better way.”
Georgia won’t know its opponent until Dec. 20, when No. 6 Ole Miss plays No. 11 Tulane. Georgia did beat Ole Miss 43-35 earlier in the season, but both those teams are different from that first game. Ole Miss won’t have Lane Kiffin, while the Bulldogs could be missing a few of their contributors.
The game will be played in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1. It’s a familiar spot for Georgia, as it won the SEC championship last year and had a long layoff before facing Notre Dame.
But Georgia would lose to the Fighting Irish. Every team that had a bye last season lost, something that wasn’t lost on Smart on Sunday.
Even after delivering a dominant performance against No. 9 Alabama.
“I think we’ve played complementary football all year. We do have a lot of players getting better. We’ve challenged our guys to do that, but the problem now is continuing to do that, and that long layoff can get you.”
Georgia will look to use the extra time off to continue to focus on improvement. Noah Thomas and Joenel Aguero should benefit from the extra rest, as both were hindered in the SEC championship game.
There are a few key differences between Georgia from last year to this year. Carson Beck was knocked out of the SEC championship game and Gunner Stockton was thrust into starting duty. The Notre Dame game marked his first career start.
Entering this year’s College Football Playoff, Stockton is the only quarterback who has started in a College Football Playoff game.
The other big change that Georgia has made is their commitment to stopping the run and running the football.
“At the end of the game, if you have to run the ball and you have to stop the run, especially when you get into cold weather or tough elements, those are things that matter the most,” Smart said. “And we didn’t do those well last year, guys. And that was what we were hanging our hat on this year was, can we stop the run and can we run the ball? And we were gonna do that come hell or high water.”
The ability to run the football was a major difference in the SEC championship. Georgia ran for 141 yards on the day, with Nate Frazier scoring a crucial third-quarter touchdown. Alabama had -3 yards in the loss.
Georgia enters the College Football Playoff with a 12-1 record and the No. 3 seed. The Bulldogs know though that their work is not done and they must continue to get better, even after Saturday.
