SEC champ Georgia wants to 'play bigger' in CFP
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- Kirby Smart said Georgia needs to "play better and play bigger in bigger moments" in the CFP, after back-to-back SEC titles were followed by quarterfinal exits to Notre Dame and Ole Miss in consecutive years.
- Georgia returns 72% of its defensive production from last season (second-best in the SEC, per ESPN's Bill Connelly), plus redshirt senior QB Gunner Stockton and junior tailback Nate Frazier.
- Georgia's offense had just two plays of 50+ yards all season — tied for the third-fewest in FBS — and only 19% of its plays went for 10+ yards, fourth-worst in the SEC, prompting center Drew Bobo to call becoming "a more explosive offense" the team's "main goal."
- Smart questioned the CFP calendar, saying "no sport that I know of shuts down for 25 to 30 days between performances" and that the Bulldogs "have not had our best performances when we needed them most."
- Georgia is chasing its first three-peat SEC title since 1980-82; Alabama last did it in 2014-16.
- Smart pointed to seven straight top-10 finishes — what he called the program's "biggest accolade" — and stressed collective toughness: "The strength of the team is the team."
Why it matters: Georgia has the SEC title machinery running but keeps losing in the first round of the format that matters most: with 72% of defensive production back and two consecutive narrow CFP quarterfinal exits, even marginal gains in explosive plays (where they ranked third-worst in FBS last year) could be the difference between another January exit and a deep run.
