ATHENS — It’s never enough, it was never enough and it will never be enough.
Coaches like to talk tough, but when it comes to Kirby Smart, it’s certainly not an act.
The edgy nature of Smart’s football personality is intentional, keeping those around him on their toes and driven in the same direction.
Whatever it is, or whatever the question, if it helps Georgia win a championship, the answer is “Yes.”
If it doesn’t help the program, don’t waste time on it, or don’t bother asking.
Thanks, but no thanks
While you’re at it, don’t expect much when or if you try to compliment Smart in public, because he’s not going to be distracted by kind words or risk any sort of complacency.
One example of Smart’s tendency to stiff-arm praise came last season, when he was asked about his 85-15 record through 100 games.
“I wish I was 100 for 100,” Smart said.
And, Smart was asked, what about having a better record through your first 100 games than Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier, Paul “Bear” Bryant or Phillip Fulmer?
“That’s elite company,” Smart said. “I probably had an easier schedule.”
Perhaps the league office took Smart at his word when they dealt him a most hellacious conference slate in 2024.
It turned out that schedule wasn’t enough to stop Smart and his ninth Georgia team from winning the SEC Championship Game and earning a No. 2 seed in the 12-team playoff.
Business trip
The Bulldogs are set to play Notre Dame at 8:45 p.m. on Jan. 1 in the Sugar Bowl, earning a bye after their resilient run through the season.
And yet, SEC league coaches collectively chose the leader of the 12th-place team — that lost their final three regular season games — as the SEC Coach of the Year.
Somewhere, Smart probably chuckled and powered up inside — if, that is, he noticed at all.
Smart probably is unaware he was named a finalist for the George Munger Coach of the Year Award on Tuesday.
Most people don’t know who Munger is, and with all due respect to the deceased former coach who led Penn from 1938-1953, it’s easy to understand why when one considers his program never finished ranked higher than seventh in the AP poll.
Perhaps its fitting that it took a relatively anonymous coach of the year award to recognize Smart, if only as one of eight finalists.
Watch this, or not
It does seem curious that Georgia’s season story is receiving so little national fanfare when the Bulldogs were the most viewed college team on television this season.
Commentators don’t often, if ever, mention Smart is the only coach in history to record three consecutive 8-0 SEC regular seasons and back-to-back CFP titles in the playoff era.
Smart reached 100 wins faster than SEC history earlier this season with an impressive 30-15 win in Austin that also gets overlooked. The win debunked the “Texas is back” narrative and proved so many national analysts wrong.
Talk, instead, turned to how burnt orange fans threw a Texas-sized temper tantrum, garbage hurled on the field during Georgia’s dominant win.
No matter, Smart and his players didn’t have time or want to celebrate, anyway. A formidable path was still ahead after UGA’s 41-34 loss at Alabama had used up an SEC mulligan.
It was a painful loss to the Crimson Tide, Smart’s first in 21 games when he’d had more than one week to prepare for an opponent.
But it proved a necessary wake-up call; changes were needed, and fast, for Georgia to hold on to its dynasty.
White-knuckle wins and shuffled lineups followed, the Bulldogs clinging to playoff hopes by their paws.
Georgia might have started the season No. 1, but it was more by default than anything. Truth is, few expected UGA to navigate a schedule that will go down among the toughest in program history.
Rocky road
It wasn’t just road games against three teams that appeared in the AP Top 10 this season — Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas.
Or three other games at home or neutral site against Top 10 teams — Clemson, Tennessee and Texas, again, in the SEC title game in Atlanta.
Georgia also had to play on the road, under the lights in September against a fresh Kentucky team that still had season hopes, along with former UGA team leaders Brock Vandagriff and Jamon Dumas-Johnson.
The Florida team Georgia faced also had a renewed vigor about it, star-in-the-making DJ Lagway had taken over and gave the Bulldogs all they could handle before falling to injury.
One week later, it was Georgia falling down, blown out and beaten in most every capacity at Ole Miss, 28-10.
The skeptics and critics seemingly couldn’t wait to take their shots.
Was Smart doing things the right way? Had the SEC finally caught up? Would this be the Georgia team that collapsed under the heavy expectations?
Smart had talked about mental “bandwidth” leading into the game, sensing the schedule and wear and tear had taken its toll.
The stage was set for Tennessee, then riding a 4-game win streak that included wins over Florida and Alabama, to score what would have been a program-changing win.
The Vols charged out to a 10-0 lead between the hedges, thrilling the 25,000-or-so orange-clad fans that made the trip.
But when the second quarter arrived, Carson Beck emerged, trucking a Tennessee defender on a first-down scramble and serving notice that these Bulldogs had new life.
Beck’s final stand
The confidence Beck instilled in the team was needed when a well-rested swarm of Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets arrived two weeks later.
Tech had played just one game in 19 days, while UGA was playing the Friday night game on a short week, and the Bulldogs had to come from two touchdowns down in the final 4 minutes.
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It turned out Beck had only one half of football left this season, as he exited the SEC title game with an elbow injury and the Bulldogs down 6-3.
That’s when Gunner Stockton entered the game and seized the moment, sparking an inevitable second-half charge that led to Georgia’s 22-19 overtime victory.
The journey
So here’s Georgia, an 11-2 record belying the odds it beat to reach the CFP platform in a season of historic depth and parity in the SEC.
Smart has yet to reflect beyond the moment, but one day he’s sure to treasure his third SEC Championship Game victory because of the resiliency these players showed.
Smart told his players and anyone who would listen back in August that this version of Georgia football would have to improve as the season progressed.
Attrition was heavy, with elite pass-catching targets Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey moved on to the NFL, along with three defensive backs who were selected in the Top 100 picks of the previous draft.
To boot, a handful of valuable “next man up” candidates had hit the transfer portal before spring drills, set to apply the time and development Smart and his staff had put into them for another program.
The offseason of off-field driving distractions had challenged the program’s image, as well, forcing UGA to step up its discipline to a level no other program dared.
The new-world problems of NIL required new-world solutions, and announcing and applying such measures was a costly but necessary step.
It’s fair to say more than one Georgia player was less than at their best when the season kicked off.
There was unfinished work to be done and caught up on after the lure of NIL deals and podcast appearances took time away that could have been spent in the film room or state-of-the-art football building.
The Georgia Way
Smart’s “Georgia Way” was challenged to endure and overcome, and the head coach’s philosophy of the “Illusion of Choice” was worth revisiting.
Next up, a Notre Dame program that has their own version of toughness and resiliency.
Irish coach Marcus Freeman applies a “Choose Hard” mantra that essentially has the same basis as Smart’s “Illusion of Choice.”
Freeman might not know his football history, admitting he didn’t know Herschel Walker beat Notre Dame in a title game, but the young coach knows how to lead and inspire players.
The Irish have won 11 in a row and believe they will make it 12, ready to mix it up in the trenches with the SEC’s best, confident they can push them around like they did Indiana.
After all, Notre Dame fans point out, the Irish handled Georgia Tech 31-13 in Mercedes-Benz Stadium this season, while Georgia needed 8 overtimes at home.
There’s plenty of bulletin board material for Smart and his Bulldogs, to be sure, but in the end it will come down to blocking and tackling.
Coach of the Year awards and first-team all-conference status — SEC coaches chose just one UGA player out of the 22 that play on offense and defense — won’t help the Bulldogs win the game or another championship.
There will be press conferences between now and the Jan. 1 kickoff, but don’t expect Smart or his players to say much of note.
The only talking that matters now will be done with the pads.
