ATHENS — Despite enjoying the atmosphere and battle testing a strong opponent provides, Kirby Smart now faces the repercussions of that, in a time where. Georgia’s strength of schedule doesn’t seem to be rewarded.
Will Georgia continue to play in big non-conference games like Clemson? Or settle for more foes like UMass, which Georgia paid $1.9 million to play this weekend, according to the Athens Banner-Herald.
Smart knows Georgia fans are more excited about games like a season-opener against Clemson, but if the threat of missing the playoffs because of a potential loss, it may not be best for the program.
“The happiness of our fans. That’s the incentive, right? Because fans want you to be in the playoffs, but they sure don’t want you to play cupcakes,” Smart said this week. “They want you to go play quality opponents. I like the whole – I mean, going to schedule a great team and going to play somebody in a neutral site game, a kickoff classic. I love all that stuff. So I want to do as much of that as I can. But I don’t know. We’ll see where all this stuff goes.”
Per ESPN’s strength of schedule metric, Georgia has the most difficult schedule in the country, having played five teams ranked in the top 20 of the latest College Football Playoff rankings, going 3-2 in those games.
Those losses currently have Georgia sitting No. 10 in the College Football Playoff rankings. Indiana has the No. 106 strength of schedule, using the same metric. The Hoosiers are 10-0 and ranked No. 5 in this week’s rankings.
Indiana will face a step up in competition this week as it takes on No. 2 Ohio State. Should the Hoosiers lose — they are a 12-point underdog — it will be worth following how the committee slots them.
Consider that Georgia dropped from No. 3 to No. 12 after its loss to Ole Miss, which is currently ranked No. 9.
While Georgia does have two losses, it also has more wins over teams currently ranked in the top 25 of the College Football Playoff rankings than No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Penn State and No. 5 Indiana have combined, holding a 3-2 edge.
Smart has taken note of what the committee seems to value.
“I think they value wins and losses,” Smart said. “And so they place people based on a column, a column of wins and a column of losses, not on the eye test of going to watch them play and see them and see who they played. I just don’t think they, I think they base it on wins and losses. I don’t think they say, well, this is better than that. They just say this record’s better than that. That’s the most simple way to do it. It’s not necessarily the 12 best. So we’ll see what happens. I’m not worried about it much. I’ve got to worry about our team and what we got going on.”
Georgia still has marquee non-conference games scheduled in the future, including home-and-homes against Louisville, Clemson, Ohio State and Florida State. There is also the annual matchup against Georgia Tech, which seems to be trending in a positive direction under Brent Key.
But in 2025, Georgia Tech is Georgia’s only Power 4 non-conference opponent after UCLA and Georgia decided to cancel their previously scheduled series. Georgia will instead play Marshall, to go along with Charlotte and Austin Peay.
Based on what the committee has done this year, that shouldn’t be a problem for Georgia, provided they win.
“They need to really decide what they want, though, and that’s the frustrating thing because it’s record-based or it’s, you know, quality of opponents,” Smart said. “It’s hard to say that you shouldn’t have a strength of schedule factor in there.”
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