Kirby Smart on Oregon’s quarterback battle: ‘I know who the quarterback’s going to be’

Mentor faces pupil in Week 1 of the college football season. Defensive Nostradamus Dan Lanning left for Oregon after serving as the Georgia defensive coordinator during their title run last season. Which, of course, was made possible by the historic dominance of that Dawgs’ defense, especially up front. Meanwhile, Kirby Smart is trying to replace him and a number of their 2021 defensive stars.

One problem Lanning dealt with this offseason that Smart didn’t is a quarterback battle. Hard to justify a QB competition when the returner started, scored 33 points, and won the national title game vs. Alabama. Meanwhile, Oregon is looking at a few options. The likely starter Bo Nix, an Auburn import. Jay Butterfield, who is entering his third freshman season (yep, you read that right). And then Ty Thompson, who is only in his second freshman season.

But Kirby Smart couldn’t care less who starts. Though he claims he already knows which guy it’s going to be. Guess that’s the perk of facing a former close colleague.

Anyway, here was Smart at his press conference previewing the Oregon game, where he explained why the opposing QB battle has no impact on his team whatsoever.

“That really doesn’t impact anything for us. I mean, I know who the quarterback’s going to be,” Smart claimed. “So I’m not worried about that, I’m worried a lot more about how our guys play and what our guys do and how our guys execute, you know.”

All about focusing on his own team. Leave the drama to the writers.

“You guys use that to write about and talk about. I mean, let’s be honest. Regardless of which quarterback is in there, they’re going to do what they do. And maybe he does one thing better than the other guy does. And at the end of the day, they may play both of them. It’s never about the preparation for one specific quarterback as much as it is the preparation of your team to go play well.”