Rece Davis reveals Kirby Smart secretly made bold prediction following national title win

When Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was on the podium accepting his second consecutive national championship trophy, ESPN’s Rece Davis tried getting him to mention a potential three-peat next year. Smart didn’t take the bait, simply replying “Go Dawgs.”

But as Smart made his way past a group of Georgia fans — without the camera on him — Davis said he struck a different tone.

“I’ll tell you what happened just behind the camera that I’m looking into right now about five minutes ago,” Davis told Scott Van Pelt on “SportsCenter” after the game. “There was a pack of Dawg fans up there still woofing and barking. And Kirby put up one finger, and then he put up two fingers and then, he put up three fingers, and they liked that result.

“Now, I tried to get him on the stage to say, ‘Hey, we’ll see you in Houston next year?’ He wouldn’t go for that. But when he thought nobody was looking, he was ready to count another one.”

It’s hard to blame Smart for looking ahead a bit after the way Georgia dominated TCU Monday night, rolling past the Horned Frogs 65-7 in arguably the most dominant performance in College Football Playoff history. Stetson Bennett was the game’s offensive MVP as he threw for 304 yards and four touchdowns in addition to two rushing touchdowns on the ground. That tied a CFP national championship record for total touchdowns in a game.

The Georgia defense also rose to the occasion, holding TCU to just 188 total yards of offense and forcing two interceptions from Heisman Trophy finalist Max Duggan. Duggan ran in the Horned Frogs’ lone touchdown of the game as he also threw for 152 yards, including a 60-yard pass to Derius Davis. That proved to be TCU’s longest play of the game.