Georgia wouldn’t be in the SEC Championship game if the season ended today. Third place is a great spot for Kirby Smart’s team.
Kirby Smart: ‘I want to win every game.’ Of course he didn’t try to lose, but there are upsides to a weekend of recovery before CFP.
SEC Championship took a toll on Georgia last season, and Bulldogs lost in playoff quarterfinals.
Third place is the utopia of the SEC standings. Maybe as good as first. Way better than second.
Third place equals good positioning in the College Football Playoff. It also means a conference championship weekend of rest and recovery, while knowing there’s no risk of missing the playoff.
And, because CFP stakeholders changed the bye rules before this season, the SEC’s third-place team has a chance to skip the first round entirely and advance straight into the quarterfinals.
Heck of a deal, right?
That’s the situation No. 4 Georgia finds itself in.
If the regular season ended tomorrow, Georgia would not qualify for the SEC Championship, courtesy of its head-to-head loss with Alabama. Instead, it would advance right to the playoff. Based on the latest CFP rankings, the Bulldogs would get a bye.
Kirby Smart: ‘I want to win every game.’
There’s still work to be done. To have a shot at that bye, Georgia must beat lowly Charlotte and survive Georgia Tech. And, if either Alabama loses the Iron Bowl or Texas A&M loses to Texas on Black Friday, the Bulldogs will wind up stuck in Atlanta playing for the conference championship.
And, yes, I do mean stuck, because the juice of a potential conference championship that might produce a tiny seeding bump is not worth the squeeze of an extra grueling game.
When a reporter asked Smart this week whether the 12-team playoff has affected how he views reaching the SEC Championship, the Georgia coach put on a theatrical production that sounded as if he really wants to play in that game.
“I want to win every game that we possibly play. So, what does that mean?” Smart said. “My objective is to win every game we play. So, where does that put us? It puts us in that (conference championship) game, right?
“So, there would be no way I would ever look at not playing in that game.”
Smart wants you to hear that as him saying he badly wants to play in the SEC Championship. But, here’s what I heard: He wants to go undefeated every season.
What coach doesn’t want to be undefeated every season?
Georgia isn’t going to finish undefeated because it already lost to Alabama, and I simply don’t buy that Smart will be rooting for Auburn to win the Iron Bowl so his team can strap it up in an extra game in Atlanta against a playoff-bound team.
Of course Smart isn’t going to say out loud he loves finishing in third place. Only Lane Kiffin would say that. And of course Georgia didn’t lose to Alabama on purpose. Smart wants to win ’em all.
Privately, though, don’t you think he’s savvy enough to recognize the upsides of not slugging it out in Atlanta, a day before the CFP bracket reveal?
SEC Championship took a toll on Georgia in 2024
And, in fact, those of us who can remember past this week recall Smart explaining in May how playing in last year’s SEC Championship game exacted a toll on his team.
“To win the SEC in the way we won it (in 2024), I think Texas and us were both really beat up from the grueling season,” Smart said on the SEC Network during the conference’s spring meetings “… It took a lot out of both our teams to play in that (SEC Championship) game.”
Those Bulldogs entered the playoff as a wounded and drained bunch. They needed seven overtimes to survive Georgia Tech, and then Carson Beck injured his elbow against Texas. That meant Gunner Stockton made his first career start against Notre Dame in the CFP quarterfinals.
The Irish ended Georgia’s season, but give Georgia Tech and Texas the assist.
Commissioner Greg Sankey said recently he’s never awarded the SEC championship trophy to a team wearing frowns.
That’s true, but imagine the smile from the coach whose team gets a weekend of rest, plus a first-round playoff bye. That comes with no trophy, but it’s still a sweet prize.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.