WATCH: Joel Klatt calls out Kirby Smart, Georgia and SEC over hyping up difficulty of road games
Fox college football analyst Joel Klatt doesn’t want to hear it about how tough road games are in the SEC relative to other conferences, especially from Georgia head coach Kirby Smart after the Bulldogs escaped Missouri with a 26-22 win.
In an impassioned denunciation of the idea that all SEC road games are somehow harder to win than in other leagues, Klatt specifically broadsided Smart for some of his comments after the Missouri game. In a clip, Smart said in part that “I promise you it’s going to be really hard in the SEC every week” and while that may be true, it’s not like there aren’t difficult road games for teams in the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 or Pac 12 — and beyond.
“Yeah, we get it. And this is always the narrative: ‘Oh it’s so hard. It’s so hard to beat Missouri’ — who got absolutely crushed by Kansas State, by 28 points. But it’s so hard for Georgia to go in to Missouri and dominate that team. It was so hard. Kent State’s not in the SEC and you were at home,” Klatt said, “so why were you in a 10-point game in the fourth quarter with Kent State? By the way, is it easier to win in other conferences on the road? Was it easy for Michigan to go in to Iowa City and win in Kinnick, when Iowa has beaten four of the last five Top 5 teams that they’ve faced in that home stadium? I’m pretty sure that’s a better track record at home than Missouri.“
The overarching point from Klatt is that it’s hard to win on the road everywhere and especially so against good teams. It stands to reason that in a given season the SEC provides the highest quantity of good teams and thus some of the most difficult road games, both in quantity and quality.
But Klatt isn’t going to stand for the idea that Missouri, which ranks 89th in scoring offense and 65th in scoring defense nationally after playing Georgia, is somehow a more difficult out on the road than Iowa or Wake Forest, for instance, solely by virtue of being an SEC team.
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“This notion that this conference has some sort of mysterious power where it’s harder to win on the road in the SEC than it is at other places is false. It’s false. That’s bias. That’s narrative. And don’t buy it,” Klatt said. “You know where it’s hard to win? At really good teams. It’s hard to win at Clemson. But they’re not the in the SEC, Joel. Yeah, but they’ve won 37 straight. It was tough for Clemson to win at Wake Forest, on the road. League road games are tough. Across the board. Ask Iowa State who rolled in to the Booth and got beat by Kansas. You bet it, you bet it. I cannot stand this narrative that all of a sudden, in that conference, it’s harder to win on the road. Missouri’s no good! They got housed by Kansas State. By 28 points. Twenty-eight. Granted it wasn’t at Missouri, but still — 28? And all of sudden, Kirby Smart’s going to go out there and quite frankly lobby everyone around the country by saying ‘Oh, don’t think down on us, it’s really hard. It’s really hard.’ Michigan’s win at Iowa was much better — much better — than Georgia’s win at Missouri. Not even close.”
All of this was justification for Klatt, in his eyes, to drop Georgia to No. 5 in his ranking and classify them as the third and final team in the second tier, which featured Michigan and Clemson ahead of the Bulldogs. In the first tier are Alabama and Ohio State, where Georgia used to reside.
But a less-than-convincing win against Kent State followed by a near-miss on the road against a pedestrian Missouri team has Klatt unwilling to entertain what he termed “propaganda” in his tweet highlighting the segment, especially from Smart or Georgia.
“Kent State got beat by [Oklahoma] by 30 and by Washington by 25. And Kent State was in a 10-point game with Georgia, in Athens, early in the fourth quarter. Georgia ends up beating them by 17. Ok, maybe you can explain that away. ‘Hey, you know, they just didn’t play great that day.’ Alright, you know what, I’ll buy that. I’ll buy that. And guess what, I did buy that. And in my snapshot last week, it didn’t affect Georgia,” Klatt said. “But then rolled out there and didn’t have a lead against Missouri until the four-minute mark of the fourth quarter. So don’t all of sudden start throwing around this garbage like it’s tougher to win at Missouri than it is at other places. It’s not tougher to win at Missouri than it is at Wake Forest, or at Iowa, which is exactly what the other two teams in my tier two did over the last couple of weeks.”