Georgia football kirby smart oregon sec

Between the two Notre Dame games, last year’s Clemson opener and this year’s game against Oregon, Georgia is no stranger to playing big games against non-conference foes.

That comes in addition to Georgia’s SEC slate. And even though a recent report from ESPN’s Chris Low indicates the league is leaning towards a nine-game conference schedule with the impending additions of Texas and Oklahoma, Georgia still wants to schedule the best teams from outside the SEC.

“It’s never changed for us,” Smart said. “It has always been my philosophy to go play quality opponents, Power-5 opponents, a good matchup. I don’t care if it’s home and home. I don’t care if it’s neutral site. Go play a good team that helps your team get better. When you play in the SEC, you’re going to run the gauntlet anyways. What’s playing one more good, physical team. We don’t run from that at Georgia. We try to embrace that.”

It helps that Georgia has made it a habit of winning non-conference games. Georgia has lost only one non-conference game since Smart became the head coach, and that was back in his first season against Georgia Tech. Georgia plays Georgia Tech in Athens to end this season, while also hosting Samford and Kent State.

Last year’s game against Clemson helped propel Georgia to its national championship run, as it was the only one-score game Georgia played all season. The Bulldogs didn’t score an offensive touchdown in that game but still prevailed thanks to its strong defense.

The hero of that game, safety Chris Smith, is very much looking forward to this year’s opener against Oregon. The game will be played in his hometown of Atlanta and he will have a number of family members in the game that will be played at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

“We’re just looking to go out there and compete the best we can,” Smith said.

The Bulldogs begin the season ranked as the No. 3 team in the country, while the Ducks enter the contest as the No. 11 team in the country. It’s one of three ranked games to be played during the opening week of the season, with No. 2 Ohio State hosting No. 5 Notre Dame and No. 19 Arkansas taking on No. 23 Cincinnati.

The Ducks will bring a number of familiar faces to the table, as Dan Lanning is now the head coach for the program. Bo Nix is also in the running to be the starting quarterback for Oregon. Nix has faced Georgia three times when he was the starting quarterback at Auburn.

“We have a lot of things to look at in the next day or two as the players get a little recovery time,” Smart said on Saturday. “We will start working as coaches on Oregon in the next couple of days, but not with the players until later in the week. We will work on some future opponents we got before the off week in the coming days just so we have a little bit of history there when we get ready to play them.”

Georgia has a number of marquee non-conference foes on the schedule in the future, including games against Oklahoma, Clemson, Texas and Florida State. How the nine-game schedule impacts that, especially the games against future conference foes in Oklahoma and Texas, is yet to be seen.

But much like more SEC games, Smart knows the Georgia fan base wants more games like the 2022 season-opener. He believes players want to play in these showdowns as well.

Given Georgia’s recent success in these matchups, how could you not?

“Our fans want that—I want that,” Smart said. It generates a lot more excitement, and you recruit off that. You go and get to sell the opening game, playing in big-time games. I think that’s important. As far as the philosophy, us playing more SEC games if that happens, so be it. It’s not going to change our philosophy as far as what we do non-conference. We had already moved to that before the realignment. We were already trying to schedule big games every year, and that’s just the way that we think is best.”

Kirby Smart wants to keep playing non-conference games against teams like Oregon

More Georgia football stories from around DawgNation