It’s safe to say that Georgia’s 2023 football schedule isn’t exactly a murderer’s row. But Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart sees it differently.
Georgia previously had Oklahoma on their schedule but dropped that game and will instead face Ball State this year. So when Smart was asked about the strength of their schedule, he pointed out that he can’t control that.
Smart explained that he doesn’t dwell on how the schedule strength might affect his team’s College Football Playoff chances. He says he just wants to beat whoever is team is supposed to play.
“Thought’s never even crossed my mind,” Smart said, via Saturday Down South. “Is there any part of that that I control? I cannot concern myself with any part of that. All we can do is try to go out and schedule the best we can, and when we scheduled the game with Oklahoma, we were trying to do that. We were trying to create this identity that we were trying to play our conference schedule, we wanted to play Georgia Tech, and we wanted to play others. We lost out on that because of a realignment, adding teams to the conference. That’s just is what it is. I certainly don’t concern myself with the thoughts of the College Football Playoff committee because I don’t have any control over it.”
With a schedule like that, Georgia’s College Football Playoff hopes hinge almost entirely on his team winning 11 or more games this season.
A loss to just about any team on their schedule except Tennessee or maybe South Carolina would probably end their chance at a threepeat barring an SEC title win in December.
Should Georgia have tried harder to add a more challenging opponent to their schedule?