ATLANTA — Kirby Smart was trotting off the Mercedes-Benz Stadium turf Saturday night trying to leave one of the most gut-wrenching games of his career, literally, behind him.
It had hardly settled in that Nick Saban had done it again, beaten his one-time top lieutenant and defensive coordinator by 3 points with — at least at that time — a College Football Playoff berth in the balance. Gone were multiple weeks as the No. 1 team in the country, a 29-game winning streak and — at least impacted — a dynasty that was rivaling the one Saban has created.
Then Smart stopped in his tracks as he headed toward the tunnel and turned around. Georgia’s coach started shaking players’ hands as they came off the field, thanking them and whispering sweet football nothings in their ears. The game had ended in the most brutal of ways, but the pursuit was not over. Smart had convinced himself — and his players — of that.
“We gonna be there,” Georgia wide receiver Rara Thomas said to himself as he limped off the field on crutches.
No translation was needed. There was the College Football Playoff after No. 1 Georgia fell 27-24 to No. 8 Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. It wasn’t so much that the CFP had been decided at that point. It’s that Smart, Georgia’s coach, had made his players believe it their ultimate goal was not yet lost.
CFP executive director Bill Hancock uncharacteristically painted the system into a corner earlier this week when he said the four-team bracket should contain the “best teams in order.”
“‘Most deserving’ is not anything in the [CFP Selection Committee’s] lexicon,” Hancock added.
Smart appropriated that revelatory statement in speaking to CBS Sports following the loss.
“If that ain’t [one of] the best four teams out there … I don’t believe any man or woman sitting on that committee doesn’t believe that that’s not one of the best teams,” he said in reference to Georgia.
Smart’s got a point. By any measure, Alabama (and Georgia) should be considered among the four best teams after Saturday’s back-and-forth SEC title game. But for the decade of the CFP’s existence, it has fudged the qualifications enough that even the Strength Everywhere Conference considered itself being in danger of being left out.
In fact, the second-most asked question in the press box after “What kind of food are they serving in the postgame?” was “Is Georgia in?”
There…
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