Georgia's Kirby Smart is Not a Top 10 Coach
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ATHENS - Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart is not a top-ten coach.
That’s what I learned reading Rivals’ Mike Farrell this week.
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This isn’t going to stop until Kirby takes Georgia to its first national title in four decades. It seems in vogue to ding Kirby for the 35 years he wasn’t coach at Georgia rather than taking an actual look at what he’s done in the five years he’s been in Athens, but this is what we do.
I feel like I say this all of the time: There are criticisms of Kirby Smart to be had (quarterbacks in general; being “stubborn”; developing as a head coach and not getting things right when UGA loses), but critics all too often jump the shark and go in too hard on Kirby.
Maybe they don’t like him. I don’t know. I will say it really does make me wonder what he’s done to ruffle feathers.
Rivals’ Mike Farrell wrote this week that Kirby Smart was not a top-ten coach. You can say a lot of things about Kirby Smart - good and bad - but not having him as one of the top coaches in the country after the last four years… I mean you are losing credibility with me immediately.
Forget that Kirby Smart has a winning record (7-6) against coaches ranked in Farrell’s top ten. We don’t have to use reason to write - we just have to press publish and watch the clicks roll in. Forget that Kirby Smart seems to be criticized more than anyone in the country for not beating Alabama. Forget that Farrell has Mario Cristobal, who has an overall losing record as a head coach, in his top ten. Cristobal could be a perfectly good coach, but it is kind of a reach to me to put a coach with a losing record in your top ten, but - again - we don’t have to use reason to write.
The default is to put Dabo Swinney, who has two national title wins, in as the No. 2 wherever you look. But I would be quite curious to see the reputation of the Tigers if the ACC weren’t the Clemson invitational each fall (then again, that has been written so much that it has gotten old, too). That he’s gotten his teeth kicked in three of the last four times the Tigers have played a game that matters is something folks tend to overlook as well. Still, I get putting Dabo at No. 2 even if that’s not what I would do.
What I guess I have a hard time figuring out is how Georgia under Kirby Smart could go 7-3 against Jimbo Fisher; 1-0 - Lincoln Riley; 1-0 - Brian Kelly; 2-0 - Dan Mullen; 3-1 - Ed Orgeron; 0-2 and be left out of the top ten. Farrell doesn’t leave anyone with a national title out of his rankings.
We really should just say: Hey, this is a list of people who have won the national title, with Lincoln Riley and Ryan Day included.
Would you really rather have Mack Brown than Kirby Smart? All due respect to Mack Brown - he’s done a heck of a job at Carolina - but think about why he got run out of town at Texas. Lincoln Riley is an awesome coach who is having the same sort of struggles at OU that Bob Stoops did; good never seems to be good enough for the Sooners (Kirby and UGA know a thing or two about that). Brian Kelly is an excellent coach who could not beat Kirby Smart the two times they faced one another - and one of those times was with a true freshman starting for Georgia “on the road” in South Bend.
Dan Mullen? I don’t think I really need to go over this one. If Mullen were a better coach than Kirby he wouldn’t have a 1-3 record against him. Again, that's not to say Mullen "isn't good". He is good. But his best season as a coach has never ended with his teams ranked top five in final polls.
I guess the bigger question is why Kirby gets this sort of thing written or said about him so often. Seriously, what has he done to piss people off? I do think some folks don’t like him, which is fine. But is that what is going on here? Why is this a pervasive narrative in the national media? Again, Kirby isn’t responsible for Ray Goff’s failings as a head coach. He only played for Jim Donnan - he didn’t make coaching decisions for him.
Why is it that Kirby Smart is penalized for Georgia’s failings from 1981, 1982, 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2012? He was the person literally calling the play to stop Georgia from winning it all in 2012.
“There is no excuse for the Bulldogs to be in the middle of a 40-year national title drought,” Farrell wrote.
No there isn’t. But the Bulldogs are not “in the middle” of a 40-year drought - MATH IZ HARDS. The middle of the 40-year drought was 20 years ago as UGA was transitioning from Donnan to Mark Richt, who has clearly lost control of Kirby Smart’s ability to be a top-ten coach.
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