Georgia Football: Kirby Smart’s judgement will begin with Tennessee
Georgia football fans have a short memory when it comes to wins against teams they should beat, and a long memory about losses to rivals. The game against Tennessee will be the start of their judgement of Kirby Smart.
The Georgia football team heads home to Sanford Stadium with a 3-1 record following the rather poor showing by the Bulldogs against Ole Miss in Oxford last week.
Considering Georgia is dealing with a new head coach and coaching staff, a true freshman quarterback, some injuries to key players and a lot of changes in the roster, 3-1 seems like a pretty respectable mark.
But while the Bulldog Nation has been cautiously optimistic and supportive in the first four games of the season, the real test of how this team – and more importantly, this coach – will be viewed begins this week against rival Tennessee.
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Saturday will be Georgia’s first home SEC game of the Kirby Smart era, and it comes against a Tennessee team who just got the 11-year Florida monkey off its back last week. The last thing a visibly rattled Georgia needed was to face a Volunteer team filled with actual confidence rather than cellophane bravado.
Tennessee is one of four teams the Bulldogs play each year that can make or break the fortunes of a head coach (even one who’s been there 15 years and won 75 percent of his games). Your worth as a sideline general in Athens is measured in how you do against Tennessee, Florida, Auburn and Georgia Tech.
Other losses are acceptable…but losses to those four teams can spell doom. Just ask Jim Donnan.
Kirby Smart knows what’s wrong with the Bulldogs – offensive line blocking, wide receivers dropping balls, too many missed tackles – and right now the Bulldogs depth at some key positions doesn’t match what will be dressed in orange and white on the other side of the field.
But knowing what’s wrong and even admitting what’s wrong (which Smart has actually done) will not change how fans look at this program and at Smart as a head coach if the Bulldogs put on another carnival sideshow like they did last week against Ole Miss.
Ole Miss is an occasional opponent, and was an emotional team coming off their loss to Alabama – a game which they seemed to have all but won. The loss to the Rebels is being somewhat dismissed as bad luck and timing on the part of the Dawgs.
But in the eyes of Bulldog fans, Georgia should always beat their four rivals, and with each loss to one of them, the confidence dwindles and the unrest begins to churn.
3-1 doesn’t matter. Freshmen players don’t matter. None of the deficiencies matter to diehard Georgia fans. You beat Tennessee…that’s what you’re supposed to do. And if you don’t think this game matters to Bulldog fans, then take a read of what happened the night fans destroyed the hedges after beating the Vols in 2000, ending a long string of losses.
Kirby Smart has been given a hall pass up to this point, but the outcome of this game against Tennessee will open the book on how fans really view their new head coach.
A win, and Smart has the Bulldogs headed in the right direction in the eyes of fans. A loss, and many fans will begin the inevitable lamenting for Mark Richt, who beat the Vols 11 out of 15 times during his tenure at Georgia.
Next: 3 Reasons Tennessee Can Make the SEC Title Game
Guess the news, Georgia fans. Tennessee is pretty good this year, and Mark Richt isn’t walking through that door.