Kirby Smart on CFP ranking: 'We've gotten really comfortable with not paying attention to it'
Georgia clocked in at No. 2 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday evening. But Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart isn’t paying those much mind, he said on Wednesday on the SEC coaches teleconference.
Smart downplayed any significance of the CFP rankings at this point in the season and didn’t seem to care that his team was No. 2 as opposed to No. 1. He got asked specifically if he or his team feels slighted given they haven’t lost a game since December 2021.
“Nah. Not slighted. It just is what it is. We’ve gotten really comfortable with not paying attention to it over the last three, four years,” Smart said.
Given that Georgia’s schedule picks up in the last month of the season with a lineup of ranked teams on the docket, the Bulldogs will have plenty of opportunity to play into the No. 1 ranking.
And while Smart surely knows that is possible, he’s keeping his focus on the week and game in front of him. It seems to have served the Georgia head coach well in years past.
“It’s always one game at a time. You know the answer to that. No coach is going to sit here and tell you he’s worried about the future or the upcoming games. I’m worried about constant improvement. Getting players back healthy. Trying to get the guys that’s aren’t play, back playing and the guys that are playing better. And you do that one week at a time,” Smart said.
Smart hopes to get a key defender back to full speed soon
As Georgia gears up for a stretch run that will include three straight games against ranked opponents, the Bulldogs do so with key players like CJ Allen still nursing injuries.
Allen, in particular, was dinged up in the team’s contest against Florida last weekend. Smart provided an update on Wednesday morning on an SEC teleconference call.
“He’s been able to practice but he has not been 100%,” Smart said. “So we tried to control his, monitor his GPS and not have real long sprints and try to control his reps and things like that. But he has practiced.”
Allen has been a somewhat light contributor on the defensive side of the ball.
So far, through the first eight games of the season, CJ Allen has recorded 11 tackles. He had one tackle in the team’s most recent game against Florida.