Five questions Georgia football's Kirby Smart is sure to get at SEC Media Days
Kirby Smart knows the drill whether it’s in Hoover, Ala., Atlanta or now Nashville.
The Georgia football coach will try to set the tone for a new season Tuesday morning at SEC Media Days after commissioner Greg Sankey likely introduces Smart with a factoid of some sort. Last year there was a pickleball reference.
SEC Media Days is the official kick off for a new college football season for a conference that sticks its chest out proudly, proclaims. 'It just means more,' and puts all its College Football Playoff championship trophies on display on the cover of its media guide. It’s six so far.
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Georgia and Smart own the last two.
Smart will begin his eighth season considered one of the college game’s top coaches.
He’s certainly the marquee coach at the podium this week not named Nick Saban.
Let’s look at five questions that Smart is sure to get, if not at the podium, then when he makes the rounds on radio row or with one of the network’s media partners.
How Kirby Smart and Georgia football handled most challenging offseason of his career
Smart can read a room. He will almost certainly bring up this topic in his opening comments. The reverberations from the death of offensive lineman Devin Willock and recruiting analyst Chandler LeCroy in a Jan. 15 crash still linger.
Smart acknowledged last week that he hasn’t solved the player speeding issues on the roads of Athens and surrounding areas. He will push back at assertions that his program is out of control or has a culture problem.
What will it take for the Georgia Bulldogs to three-peat?
Five years ago, Smart channeled Billie Jean King by proclaiming “pressure is a privilege,” after the team came an overtime loss to Alabama from winning the 2017 national championship. Last year he said of Georgia: “We will not be hunted.”
Chances are good, he’ll have another prepared message about chasing a three-peat after becoming the first team in the playoff era to win back-to-back national title.
“I do think it's going to be much tougher,” Smart said in Los Angeles the morning after beating TCU 65-7 for the title.” And I do think we're going to have to reinvent ourselves next year because you can't just stay the same.”
Is Carson Beck the man at quarterback?
There are five teams bringing quarterbacks this week to SEC Media Days. Georgia is not one of them.
That’s hardly a surprise given the starting job is still open. At least Smart wants that mindset in preseason camp.
Carson Beck exited the spring as the clearcut favorite to replace two-time national championship winning quarterback Stetson Bennett. Brock Vandagriff stuck around and, at the least, provides a talented fallback QB along with redshirt freshman Gunner Stockton.
Don’t expect Smart to proclaim Beck has locked up the quarterback job quite yet.
Will UGA's schedule cost them in College Football Playoff?
The rotating dropbacks for coaches on the main stage at SEC Media Days have sometimes included that year’s schedule for the team.
For Georgia, it would display the cushy nonconference schedule of UT-Martin, Ball State, UAB and Georgia Tech.
Smart figures to be asked how that kind of weak nonconference slate could hurt Georgia come playoff selection time if the Bulldogs take a loss during the season.
Smart may not offer spin and just state the truth--that the margin for error goes up without a Clemson or Oregon on the schedule in the non-SEC schedule.
More: On day QB Carson Beck shines, Brock Vandagriff addresses his future with Georgia football
Has Georgia overtaken Alabama as THE program?
Nick Saban will be making his 16th SEC Media Day appearance as head coach of Alabama. That’s the most at one school by any coach. Mark Richt went 15 straight seasons from 2001-15 at Georgia. Saban is in his 17th season at Alabama, but the event was scrapped in 2020 due to COVID.
Has the 47-year old Smart and the Bulldogs overtaken the 71-year old Saban and the Crimson Tide after winning the national title in 2021 and 2022?
Don’t expect Smart to embrace that narrative and elbow out his mentor who he worked with at Alabama, LSU and the Dolphins
“I don’t measure our program based on their program,” he said at the SEC spring meetings. “We measure our program on doing the best we can do and that’s doing the best job we can each and every year. Our success is based on how we work out, how we perform, how we run, how we turn over the ball, how we convert third downs. It’s really that simple. It’s not based on the other program.”
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: 5 questions for Georgia football coach Kirby Smart at SEC Media Days
