MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Kirby Smart is all about controlling the narrative, and his Georgia football team followed suit with a dominant performance in the Orange Bowl.
The Bulldogs beat previously unbeaten Florida State by a 63-3 count on Saturday, recording the largest margin of victory in all of the bowl games’ history.
“People on the outside said it didn’t matter, (that) nobody cares, nobody should be at the game, nobody should play in the game,” Smart said, addressing the crowd at Hard Rock Stadium.
“These guys right here, they care. They care about each other.”
The Bulldogs, like most every other program in this new transfer portal era, had players missing on account of them looking for new opportunities.
But none of the healthy Georgia players returning or heading to the NFL opted out, and all of those players were on hand, including injured projected first-round picks Brock Bowers and Amarius Mims.
Smart said at the Coaches’ Press Conference on Friday that not enough people talk about the importance of “finishing.”
And what did the Orange Bowl win say about this Georgia football team?
“It says our seniors are 50-4 in four years, and make no mistake about it, this senior class drove this team to excellence,” Smart said, pointing to the school-record number of wins for a senior class.
“They (Seniors) didn’t let them slack off in practice, they made them work, (and) a lot of the juniors said, ‘I want to finish what I started. I want to walk off the field a winner, and they care about the university of Georgia and they care about each other.”
Smart, whose program was ranked No. 1 throughout the season, had made the case UGA belonged in the four-team CFP field after losing in the SEC title game.
On Saturday, Smart reiterated that his team was of championship caliber.
“I know this, we have a really good football team in a system that doesn’t allow everyone an opportunity to play for it,” Smart said. “This group out of here competed their tail off, and they came out and won and orange bowl.
“These guys have won seven bowl games in a row, so it’s incredible what they’ve done.”