ZBlogY

LOS ANGELES — The man and the coach who has had the biggest influence on Kirby Smart’s career couldn’t make it to Los Angeles this week. He will be resting on a couch back home in south Georgia, or trying to rest anyway, while watching Georgia playing for another national championship with his son on the sideline.

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“I’m doing OK,” Sonny Smart said, via text message, “but we were not comfortable making the trip so soon after heart problems. Old age and high mileage takes a toll.”

Sonny Smart was a former longtime high school football coach and Kirby’s first coach. He attends most Georgia games. He was in South Bend and hugged Kirby on the field in celebration following the Bulldogs’ upset win in 2017, the first hint of a program turnaround after Smart’s nightmarish first season. He was in Indianapolis last year when Kirby officially led the program back to national glory for the first time in 41 years, and he was in attendance for the SEC championship win over LSU last month, but he stayed home for the Playoff semifinal in the Peach Bowl.

“It hurts me that he and my mom won’t be here, but I know it’s the right decision for him,” Smart said. “Nothing worse than watching your parents grow old. It’s like taxes; it’s inevitable. They’re going to get old. And that’s been tough. But he’s taught me so much just about the way you handle things, the right way, the wrong way. Control the controllables.”

The lessons have paid off.

Smart’s level of recruiting and player development, as well as the resources the administration (and boosters) have afforded him, has elevated Georgia to the top of the elite. The Bulldogs are 12 1/2-point favorites over TCU, and if they pull this off they will be the first college team to win consecutive championships in a decade and Smart would join Saban and Dabo Swinney as the only active coaches with more than one title.

The word “dynasty” is thrown around too often in sports. But it’s not unreasonable to think Smart and Georgia can win several titles.

The imminent expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams, as well as the expectation of the SEC going to a nine-game conference schedule, theoretically makes the road to a championship more difficult. But consider the NCAA basketball tournament: While there are often upsets in the first couple of rounds, traditional dominant programs usually reach the Final Four.

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“Can we do it every year? Personally, I think we really have,” Smart said about being national title contenders. “Like, outside the first season I was here, there’s not a year that we weren’t in it. You get to the SEC championship and that puts you in contention every year, and that’s what we have to do. We have to win the East and we’ve done that most years besides one.”

An expanded playoff “creates more opportunities for TCU or whoever,” he said. “But I think what people aren’t considering is where people will play and home-field advantages, Southern teams going north in December, Northern teams going south in December. All that’s going to have a factor on it. But I can’t sit here and say that Power 5s are going to have a harder time because I actually think there’s going to be more opportunities for more Power 5s.”

TCU coach Sonny Dykes has similar thoughts. The Horned Frogs have been this season’s feel-good, little-guy story. They play in a Power 5 conference but they’re only 11 years removed from being in the Mountain West. Only four players on this year’s team had played in a bowl game — any bowl game — before last week’s upset of Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl.

But will this be an aberration for similar programs? Even Dykes doesn’t know. He believes the player depth at programs like Georgia will allow them to endure longer postseasons.

“How healthy is a nontraditional team? How much depth does a nontraditional team have, and can they survive the extra two games they have to play to keep advancing?” he said. “So I think you can make an argument either way, where some of the traditional powers will benefit from the 12-team playoff. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.”

Safe guess: The Dogs will be fine. Smart assumes nothing but he continues to “control the controllables,” and unless something radically changes in economics or recruiting, this is Georgia’s new normal.

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The son echoed his father’s words.

“The moment’s never too big if you’re prepared,” Smart said. “I always watched the way he prepared our teams and our staff in high school. He was a very wise man, a man of few words. I tried to follow his mantra as a coach.”

(Photo: Keith Birmingham / MediaNews Group / Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)

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