3 parting shots on Georgia season: Kirby Smart squeezed most out of Bulldogs

System · January 8

3 parting shots on Georgia season: Kirby Smart squeezed most out of Bulldogs

The Bulldogs, picked to finish second in the SEC behindTexas and ranked No. 5 in the preseason AP Top 25, entered the playoffs ranked No. 3 and as SEC champions.

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Draftpick01 · January 8

We know what a championship caliber team looks like, and we don't have the talent. We have solid line on both sides but none of them are elite or 1st round talents! Wr is not elite out side Branch, and he's leaving so is Young. And I agree most of the guys playing today would not start over the 21-22 teams and that falls on Kirby for not getting the talent Georgia needs to win it all.

RedUga4Ever · January 8

We for sure need a lot more wr elite to help gunner and one more on the dl. Spend the $ Kirby!

Eastmandawg · January 8

Keeping it in perspective and understanding the game - nice article @Mike Griffith.

Bdw3184 · January 8

In speaking of potential achieved this year, @MikeGriffith stated:

Indeed, from this vantage point, Kirby Smart and his Georgia Bulldogs had a helluva year.

This Ole Dawg Fan, having seen many more disappointing seasons than this one, does agree wholeheartedly with this statement!!

Great article Mike, very good encapsulation of the season as a whole! As @Eastmandawg said [paraphrased], "this was an article which stated the perfect perspective of the season" and how it should be remembered!

Go Dawgs! See you in 2026!!!

Billy2131 · January 8

Excellent regular season for UGA at 11-1 with top-notch coaching from Kirby and his staff… However, another one-and-done in the new playoff era means that Kirby and his program, in three years, have not achieved their goal of playing in the National Title game and ultimately winning the National Title

The issue going forward, and with the SEC now playing a 9-game conference schedule, is how Kirby and his program can overcome these missed opportunities in the playoff era. Injuries are part of the game and have affected UGA's ability to move forward deeper into the POs, along with honestly questionable play calling on both sides of the ball, and frankly, getting outcoached.

The NIL has truly diminished Kirby's ability to stack talent on talent, which gave him and his program the ability to overcome in-game depth issues along with injuries to starters. Does he need to get more high-end talent out of the portal and be more of a mercenary like dbag Kiffin and the coach from the Hoosiers? We know both programs are playing tonight and tomorrow for a slot in the title game on the 19th. I don't know, but Kirby needs to look hard in the mirror and figure out the best path to tweak this program to be able to win another National Title sooner rather than never.

I will say…UGA has been given a ton of raw deals with scheduling, biased playoff selection picks etc.. in the last three years, with tough, almost insurmountable odds stacked against the program to win the SEC or Natty and yet Kirby and his program have adapted, overcome, and overachieved…This, I will tip my cap in amazement!

Go Dawgs, and I'm pulling for the Hossiers to win it all!

railroadtrack1 · January 8

OL started out slow, got healed up some and played much better. The line missed Bobo badly versus the Rebels. The backup center Tolliver was abused pretty badly by Ole Miss with scheme, probably something Golding saw on the SEC Championship tape versus Bama that he could exploit on the young center. The Dawgs will get Bobo back, and a BIG if Freeling and Greene return the OL should be a strength in 2026. Running back room will be strong as well. I think the defense starts out strong unlike 2025 leaving only the receiving room in question.

navydawg · January 8

@MikeGriffith Excellent and realistic article Mike !! Well done !!

GoodOlDawg · January 8

“Georgia exited the season as SEC champions with a 12-2 record…..”

That is a fantastic achievement and nothing to hang your head about. I would have LOVED to add a Natty to that SEC championship, but it just didn’t go our way. To consider this year as a failure because of that just isn’t realistic. There are a lot of factors that could change the outcome of a 3- point game!

GO DAWGS!

Eric_C · January 8

Yeah aside from the talent differential, I like that you consider the schedule as a factor. Back in 21 and 22, the Dawgs had the luxury of only playing a few 60 minute games as games were often decided by half time. In this day and age, especially with OU and Texas now in the conference, the Dawgs will at least have to double the 60 minute games. It also doesn't help that GT has improved, and teams are now required to win extra games in the playoffs. If we still had the 4 game playoff system, the Dawgs would have played in the semis automatically the past two seasons, and who knows how it would have gone if they had faced say PSU (2024) and OSU (2025) in those games. Yep, I'd say Kirby has done an outstanding job at navigating the past two seasons.

Concerned · January 8

I agree.

However, we have 2nd and goal at the 3 to win the game. Instead of putting in our bigs and running 3 straight times to win the game, we spread them out and try and fool them with the run. Worst case scenario, we go to overtime.

As Saban has always said, in crunch time, it is not the plays but the personnel. Way too many times, we had the wrong personnel in the game in crunch situations.

I do not if we were good enough to beat Indiana, but with proper coaching, we beat Ole Miss.

randomsportsfan · January 8

@MikeGriffith The perspective that you are missing is that - whether high school recruiting, portal or NIL - Kirby Smart has struggled with getting elite ball handlers - QB, WR, RB, TE - his entire career. Example: 10 years and he has recruited a single #1 picks at those positions: Brock Bowers. (Sony Michel was a Mark Richt recruit.) Why is this important? Because Smart has actually only won playoff games in 2017, 2021 and 2022. The 2017 team had Michel (and Chubb, also Richt recruit, who goes #1 without the injury history). The 2021 and 2022 team? Bowers. It is high time that the UGA fandom stops pretending that they are going to succeed in the playoff without guys like that when in the 2000s and 2010s you couldn't even win the SEC without guys like that.

Is the effort there? For all the blaming of the portal and NIL, Smart wasn't excelling in that area before that era either. Even in the portal/NIL area, Smart has for years made the conscious choice to go after backups and role players over big time talent. For the 2024 season? Chose the backup RB at Florida (Etienne) over the All-SEC RB from Ole Miss (Judkins). At WR, Smart has a history of going after slot WRs and one dimensional players (Blaylock, Humphreys, Branch) over guys with the size and ability to play X and Y. Even if your position is that Smart doesn't want to pay the NIL money for the elite major college portal players, there are tons of Group of 5, FCS etc. with size, speed and big numbers available in the portal every year that do not cost nearly as much. (Trinidad Chambliss was one of them.) Smart doesn't go after guys like that either.

Smart wants dominant talent on defense and at QB, OL and TE but "just good enough" everywhere else. 1. "Just good enough" keeps the big time QBs from coming to UGA because they prefer throwing and handing off to 1st and 2nd round pick WRs and RBs. 2. Even if this strategy ever really worked - 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2023 before portal/NIL spiraled out of control say otherwise - it won't anymore because portal/NIL will keep UGA from ever building the 2021-2022 teams by traditional means again. The likes of Amarius Mims, Jalen Carter, Darnell Washington etc. would get million dollar paydays elsewhere. (Can't blame them: Washington for example lost millions of NFL money due to the combination of injuries and getting beaten out by Bowers that he is never going to get back. The same is true of UGA RBs that will never put up big numbers in the post Monken RB by committee era. So they are trying to get their money now.)

People keep claiming that Dabo Swinney needs to shift gears. Smart needs to do the same.

Kudzu · January 8

Great article @MikeGriffith

I get a little flummoxed when folks don't appreciate what CKS has done with this team, one of his youngest ever. Certainly, ludicrous comments of Kirby being a "loser" are just that... ludicrous.

As a point of perspective, look at all the first rounders Mel Kiper is showing for Ohio State in his mock draft (link below). Georgia? One

https://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2026/story/_/id/46573669/2026-nfl-draft-rankings-mel-kiper-big-board-top-prospects-players-positions

OSU is out of the CFP (and NOT a conference champion) as well with much greater seasoned talent this year (we have lots of young talent). I'd say Kirby did an amazing job.

Thank you, Dawgs football!

Eastmandawg · January 8

https://forum.dawgnation.com/discussion/comment/824948#Comment_824948

"I get a little flummoxed when folks don't appreciate what CKS has done with this team, one of his youngest ever. Certainly, ludicrous comments of Kirby being a "loser" are just that... ludicrous".

And getting paid to do it all…the writer and I use this term loosely, is nothing but a lazy troll that links & copies most of his content from others. I can get that in chat rooms, but not here.

He even put the word “loser" in the headlines to be sure all could see. DawgNation can do better than this unless this is what they want - a lazy troll with no substance to the majority of his articles.

Good info from Kiper on OSU. He seems to be right more than he is wrong. I believe the last time someone had 5 taken in the first round was Georgia and it was a record (could be wrong) - and they also had something to show for it, unlike OSU. Heck, that would be something to write about…rather than just being lazy and calling Kirby a "loser".

I'm sure Kirby and crew are showing this draft info to the recruits and pouring cold water on this BS "loser" talk. Other schools read it and try to damage the program - recruits read it too, it's a tough world out there.

Don't want to feel like I am reading The Enquirer when I read my sports page…but here we are.

thx…

ThatDawg · January 8

Yeah, I actually just signed up for an account just to post this because this article so insanely misses the point it’s offensive.

This team had dudes at nearly every position. One of our best RBs in years, a first round WR, and more than enough defensive pieces. The first game was a total shootout and there was no reason to think this one wasn’t going to be either based on their style and personnel.Hence it was going to come down to coaching decisions and that is where Kirby woefully failed.

There is absolutely 0 reason why we should have lost that game, and to say anything less is certifiably pathetic. Don’t make excuses for Kirby as he so famously doesn’t accept them in his program. The one he is paid 13MM a season to coach, mind you.

Kirby may have gotten the most from these players, but they didn’t get the most from him. For a 10 year, two time national champion coach, to not call three straight running plays in the last sequence is criminal. If you’re going to throw, at a minimum get into your tallest WR threat in 8 or your best player in Branch. You don’t throw a pitiful low percentage play to a TE known far more for his blocking. Easily one of the worst play calls in Georgia history, and there have been several. Bobo and whoever didn’t overrule that play call should be ashamed of themselves because they let everyone involved with the Dawgs down in a profound way.

And don’t blame the defense on that last series, they probably felt pressure to force a play after watching their coaching staff piss away a golden opportunity to win. I don’t blame them.

This game wasn’t due to lack of player effort, it was lost purely and simply due to piss poor coaching. Kirby owes more to his players and this fanbase. It was bama before and now Ole Miss seems to have a mental edge over us. If we’re not in the semis or better next season, and ideally a title, this program has to accept the fact that it may be regular season champs that can’t get it done when it matters most. Overall program mediocrity and irrelevance isn’t far behind at that point.

So do something Kirby. Get hungry, angry, and motivated again.

You owe that to all of us, and most importantly, to yourself.

Max · January 8

3 parting shots on Georgia season: Kirby Smart squeezed most out of Bulldogs

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