WATCH: Kirby Smart reveals what celebrity he would be best friends with
There are plenty of celebrities with ties to Georgia. Country singer Luke Bryan served as the celebrity guest picker on College GameDay earlier this year, and ESPN’s Elle Duncan wears her Bulldogs pride well on SportsCenter.
But when asked about which celebrity he’d want to be best friends with, Kirby Smart decided to go with a Texas Longhorn.
“Maybe Matthew McConaughey,” he told SEC Network’s Laura Rutledge.
Smart originally said he was going to go with a professional athlete, but opted to go with a celebrity to answer the actual question. The interesting part is he chose McConaughey, a Texas alumnus who also serves as the Longhorns’ “Minister of Culture,” over anyone with Georgia connections.
But McConaughey has a football role to his name. He played Jack Lengyel in “We Are Marshall,” and LSU head coach Brian Kelly — Smart’s opponent in Saturday’s SEC Championship — made sure to point that out.
“He was a great coach in the Marshall film, too,” Kelly said.
It was a lighthearted moment, but Smart and Kelly will be all business Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta when the SEC title game kicks off. For Georgia, it marks the second straight trip to the game as the Bulldogs try to follow up last year’s national championship — the program’s first in 40 years. As for LSU, it’s quite the exclamation point on Kelly’s first season in Baton Rouge after leaving Notre Dame over the offseason.
Smart acknowledged the job Kelly has done with the Tigers this year, and he said he’s not surprised considering the quality of his Notre Dame teams.
“I’ve always had respect for Brian Kelly’s teams, going way back to when we played him at Notre Dame. They had very high quality preparation, coaching staff,” Smart said Monday. “They do a great job in all areas. He’s very organized. He has a process. He knows how to run a program.”