ATHENS - Dabo Swinney’s Tigers were favored by a field goal to beat Kirby Smart’s UGA Football program. Clemson was coming off a 10-2 season and another birth in the CFP. Everyone was coming out of COVID.
Sure, Clemson had lost superstar quarterback Trevor Lawrence (and his hair), but another five-star quarterback was replacing him. Dabo and company were set to keep those orange-clad tractors rolling for another season.
Then the game started, and Clemson looked as lost as they had been since Alabama punished them in the Sugar Bowl following the 2017 season. Georgia won 10-3. I remember going into that game thinking Georgia probably shouldn’t have been an underdog, but that I understood how that works sometimes. We can be prisoners of the the most-recent moment.
I saw the confidence of Clemson fans during that time up close. It was deserved. But I knew it would always come to an end. And it did that night in Charlotte.
That brings me to this question: Do you think Clemson fans thought their run was over that night? Did Alabama fans know it was over as soon as the Tide lost to Michigan in the Rose Bowl Game?
All of that leads to this: When will Georgia’s run with Kirby Smart end? Have we already seen the peak Kirby, and we didn’t realize it at the time? My suspicion is that we’ve already seen Georgia peak under Kirby. Three seasons with two national titles and two total losses is about as peak as anyone has ever gotten in college football.
And that’s what Georgia delivered from 2021 to 2023. I can count on my hands (2021 Clemson, 2021 SECCG, 2022 CFP NCG, 2022 Missouri, 2022 Ohio State, 2023 South Carolina, 2023 Auburn, 2023 Missouri, 2023 Tech and 2023 Bama) how often games were “not” over at the half.
That was peak college football domination. If Kirby tops that in the future he will probably go down as college football’s second-best coach of all time.
As good as Alabama was from 2011 to 2013 (under college football’s best coach of all time Nick Saban) I’m not sure it was as good as UGA’s from 2021-2023. But it is a close comparison. We’ve seen some great seasons from great teams (2019 LSU), but we’ve not seen much like those two in those two times.
That begs the question: if the totally dominate era of Kirby is over at Georgia does that mean we’ve seen the last title for Kirby?
That is a very good question. Imagine Kirby being head coach at Georgia for 20 years and leaving with two national titles. Is that success? Let me answer that question with a question(s):
Was Steve Spurrier successful at Florida? Was Bobby Bowden successful at Florida State?
Here’s another question: How disappointing would it be for Kirby to end his career at Georgia with two national titles? At this point it would be disappointing, but at what level of disappointment?
I will say I expect Kirby to win another national title(s) at Georgia. 2017, 2023 and 2025 were teams that certainly could have won it. 2023 UGA Football should have won it all to be frank. Being that good that many times… you are going to win it, and Georgia did - twice.
And if you play in big games you are going to lose some big games.
We don’t get to make up national titles anymore. You have to go win them, and that’s getting more and more difficult to do for any number of reasons. But even if this isn’t peak Georgia fans should still expect golden trophies in the future.
