You Can Blame Kirby Smart, but Blame Georgia More
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
When I think of the 2016 season for the Georgia Bulldogs, I am reminded of a commercial the NFL put out maybe about 10 years back at the end of the season they looked back 4 months before. In the "flashback" clip they talked about how certain teams were supposed to be a legit threat only to go 4-12 and 3-13.
That is pretty much a parallel to what a large portion of Georgia fans had in mind this year.
Richt's cool demeanor irked his critics at Georgia.
The first thing I am reminded is how the Bulldogs fan base was very divided on Mark Richt's firing. Casual Georgia fans who thought Richt was a "good ol' boy with great values" should have stayed. But the diehard fans and ones who invested in the program wanted Richt gone from the Alabama game in Athens where the Tide dismantled Georgia 38-10 and then spiraled out after losses to Tennessee and the embarrassing loss to Florida. Despite those losses, Georgia went 10-3. But Richt was gone because as the ones supported Richt was a guy who will NEVER get over that hump in the SEC after 15 years. Legit? Perhaps. But I think many were driven insane that Richt was very cool and at times nonchalant whenever the chips were down, which really got fans angry with him. Add in that the likes of seeing Florida, LSU, Alabama, and Auburn all hold national championship trophies in Richt's tenure while the likes of Ole Miss and Mississippi State were climbing up in the rankings higher than Georgia did not sit well with fans. The "change" was needed.
So in most cases, the next coach will be the total opposite of the fired coach. So, the Bulldogs wanted to get a guy who was energetic, emotional, and more of a defensive mind.
Enter Kirby Smart.
Smart's hire made Georgia and the fans believed a great future was starting ON THE DAY OF.
Smart was a defensive mind, energetic, emotional, and with an added bonus, was a Nick Saban assistant for 11 of 12 years (minus one year where he worked under Richt as RUNNING BACK coach). So this was it. Georgia's drought of no national title for 36 years will go out the window and when Saban leaves Alabama, the Bulldogs will take control...............which was probably in a lot of fans' minds when this happened. Heck, they sold out their Spring Game and fans were pumped at the idea of Smart, Jacob Eason, and the crew of Chubb and Michel coming back would propel them to at the very worst the SEC Championship game against Saban and Alabama and with a different result from 2015 and 2012. It was too perfect.
Except there was a hiccup. Kirby Smart has never been a head coach at any level.
Oops.
I mentioned in my post 4 months ago I was VERY SKEPTICAL of Georgia's hire of Smart. And the #1 reason was a simple one: he hadn't been a head coach ever. And my friends who read the article that were Georgia fans were mad with me, and blew it off, going, "oh come on! Richt was the same way!" I also heard the "Saban Factor" which would make him Saban 2.0. And how that he will get the program to greatness THIS YEAR. I heard from my friends how after the win against North Carolina in the opening week that the Bulldogs will steamroll through Tennessee and Florida while Auburn, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt were gimme wins. They would be 11-1 with the lone loss was a road game at Ole Miss and then a dogfight would ensue in Atlanta against Alabama. It was all set.
Then the season played out.
Georgia might have beaten Nicholls, but the warning signs in that game should have been taken seriously.
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Georgia squeaked by Nicholls, got DESTROYED by Ole Miss, lost to Tennessee (albeit played well), looked terrible against Florida, and lost to VANDERBILT (2nd time in 4 years) while now have losses penned against Kentucky, Auburn, and even Georgia Tech, meaning there is a very strong chance that the Bulldogs will not be bowling. Fans who proclaimed Smart would lead them to the promised land have turned on him fast. And those fans want him fired after one season.
So the question needs to be asked, should Kirby Smart be blamed for this dumpster fire that has become the Georgia Bulldogs season? While I think he has done a poor job, the answer is mostly no.
It falls on Georgia.
The Florida game was a symbol of how Smart's season has gone.
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Yes, Smart deserves the garbage he got of how he coached in the Tennessee game as well as the Vanderbilt game at the end. Those decisions to this day are some of the baffling decisions I have seen in a game. And how he prepared for the Florida game was utterly dumbfounding. I also do not believe his hires of Mel Tucker (albeit hasn't gone too bad yet) and Jim Chaney (which is almost on the same lines as Schottenheimer last year, maybe worse and he has more to work with) were not the best of decisions either.
The ones who still defend Smart's hiring claim that he inherited a dumpster fire. To that I agree in one way, but I do not agree with it nearly as a whole largely because Georgia year in and year out has a top 10 recruiting class in the nation. All of a sudden the "cupboard is empty?" Come on! Georgia got Jacob Eason, the #1 rated HS quarterback last year and still had a top 10 class and have continued. So that excuse goes out the window.
So, what is it about Georgia that really makes me think it isn't Smart as it is Georgia? Simple: the attitude of the program.
Even Kirby Smart said it on the radio before the season about how there is a sense of entitlement among the players and even the staff (more of the past however). At the time I thought it was more of a shot of Mark Richt, but this has gone on even before Richt arrived, when Donnan and Goff were at Georgia. It always seemed like the players did what they wanted to do, how they wanted to do it, and starting spots were handed and not earned, and it sounded like even Smart sensed it.
Smart was around Saban long enough to know how things worked to get to a national championship
And while Smart played at Georgia, he knew well enough from Saban that isn't and shouldn't be the case. You earn your spot and you earned everything you got.
I think that has been the mega difference with Georgia and a program like Alabama is Alabama works hard to strive and players work hard for their spots. I am not saying Georgia is a slack program from the players, but it just comes off as assumed that the Bulldogs players got those spots because they are talented. But it is probably why while Georgia's defense last year was ranked near the top, they almost fired Jeremy Pruitt middle of the year because of his "earn your spot" mentality (he worked under Saban too) which might have rubbed certain people in the program the wrong way. I remembered one Georgia fan saying that "well, while we want to be like Alabama and win titles, we want to have our own identity and do things our own way." Well, that's probably why there are 4 national titles in 7 years at Tuscaloosa (which Smart contributed to) and 0 national titles in 35 years in Athens.
Smart's first win against North Carolina probably set the team back of all things.
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
And I think of all things that really hurt Georgia this year was of all things, a win to start the season against North Carolina. Back to the Alabama comparison for a minute: you see Alabama every year play in a big game whether it is in Dallas or Atlanta facing off against a power 5 program (Michigan, USC, Virginia Tech, West Virginia) and they are the favorites every time. They go in, thump their opponent and leave. And the mentality is "Well, that's game 1, we have 13 more to go to reach our goal."
Georgia got North Carolina in the Chick Fil-A Kickoff. They were favored to win, and won (though UNC lead going into the 4th). Then it was party like they just won the national championship. Even Kirby Smart, who was coaching his first game, celebrated like it was January, beating Texas, LSU, Notre Dame, or Clemson. Did that set off a misleading sign for the players? Maybe. But it was his first game so some slack should have been cut.
The Bulldogs got thumped by the Rebels, which many considered the beginning of the end for 2016.
Matt Bush-USA TODAY Sports
But what might have happened to Smart and Georgia was that the rest of the year would be too easy. What it did in the leading weeks that they never played with that same intensity and emotion. Nicholls, Missouri, and then the Ole Miss was the perfect storm. Fans posted to Facebook and Twitter saying how embarrassed they were about the Ole Miss game and how the Bulldogs should be ashamed. And yes, they were awful. After the Tennessee game, it got worse with losses to Vanderbilt and Florida.
But the thing was, the team played listless. They played with no emotion, no energy, nothing. Total opposite of what Smart was really brought in for. To me, whatever Smart has been selling the players aren't buying. I am not sure if the players felt "hurt" by Richt's firing still. I hear beat writers for Georgia say the players do listen to Smart & the staff, but I will say if they are "buying" something they aren't putting forth what Smart is sellng. Is it Smart's fault for that? Perhaps not. Largely because he might have players who still feel betrayed by what Georgia did to Richt. But whatever it is, the season has become an epic nightmare.
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Kirby Smart is in over his head. It is that simple. You see it with his coaching decisions in the game. You see it how he handles the press (similar to Saban, but unlike Saban who gets a free pass, Smart doesn't because he hasn't earned it). And you see it with how he reacts now like he is on the defensive of what he does. But again, I don't blame him because Georgia put him in this mess. He is a first-time coach and he inherited a major power-5 program with high expectations. You don't do those things and hope that it will all pan out well. To add on top, he needs to change a culture of entitlement and how a program and the boosters/fans albeit want to win, doesn't want the status quo to change of being this team with great swag and arrogance to something the program is not accustomed to being. And that is hard for any first-time coach to do.
And that's where I think Georgia messed up. They should have gone hard after the likes of an experienced head coach such as Justin Fuente where he has a pulse of what is going on. Smart's best shot should have gone to a "other-5" school to get his feet wet and then join a mega school similar to what Urban Meyer, Mark Dantonio, and others before him have done. Instead, you have a program despite being a top recruiting program already, that feels like it is a mess now. Some will blame Smart, but really Georgia should have known what they were getting into.
The bottom line is, you don't fire a coach who went 9-3 despite having issues facing the big boys. You just don't. Would Richt have ever gotten Georgia over the hump? Probably not, but unless the coach you bring in will lead you to that promised land and have a mega track record of success, you're better off keeping him. Jim Harbaugh, Urban Meyer, and Nick Saban are those three guys you would do that for, but they are not going anywhere. Instead, Georgia turned to a guy who has not gained any experience as a head coach. This lesson was learned when Maryland fired Ralph Friedgen at 9-3 and turned to Randy Edsall, who in turn buried the Terps.
Does that mean Smart will be a complete failure at Georgia? No. It will take two or three years before his fingerprints are on the program, but the issues will reside that the boosters/fans will never be happy with him if he doesn't do things "the Georgia Way" which might remain a conflict not just for Smart, but for other coaches that follow suit.
And that is a Georgia problem, not Smart.
-Fan in the Obstructed Seat
