Should Georgia be hoping to miss the SEC Championship Game and the easier College Football Playoff route?

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, known across the sport as a ruthless killer who inspires his Bulldogs teams to annihilate the competition, made an interesting remark recently about players who opt to transfer out of his program.

“We schedule them. The ones that want to leave, we schedule them,” Smart said. “We try to get them on the schedule because, when they want to leave because they’re not physical, it means they’re probably going to a place that’s not physical. We like those places. We like to play them. We prefer them, actually, if we can get them on the schedule.

“It’s one of those deals, you don’t run from hard in life. You run from hard, you’ll find more hard.”

You can have a long conversation about whether Smart’s comments make sense, given scheduling typically occurs years in advance, long before Georgia knows where former players wind up. But the point was that the easiest way out isn’t often the best path to take.

Which brings us to Friday evening when Georgia beat Georgia Tech 16-9 in Atlanta, finishing a regular season in which the Bulldogs are 11-1 overall and 7-1 in SEC play. The prevailing question around Georgia football is this: Should the Bulldogs be hoping to avoid the SEC title game to create an easier path to the national title game?

This is a question because Georgia ranked No. 4 in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings. And as of right now, the Bulldogs don’t control their own destiny in the SEC. To make it back to Atlanta, the Bulldogs need either Texas A&M to lose to Texas on Friday night or Auburn to beat Alabama on Saturday.

If you gave Smart truth serum, what do you think he’s hoping for?

The conventional wisdom would be to hope to miss it. There is a real chance the Bulldogs could not play in Atlanta next weekend and still wind up in the top four of the final CFP standings, which would give them a bye in the first round of the tournament. That could mean Georgia’s next game wouldn’t be until New Year’s Eve.

That would undoubtedly be the easiest path.

But is it the best one? What does Georgia want?

The SEC’s slogan is “it just means more.” And as the new CFP system deemphasizes the regular season and makes the entire picture about the national championship, you can understand why Georgia fans would fixate on that. Also, Georgia has won three SEC titles under Smart, so hoisting that trophy isn’t as important to Bulldogs as it may be for, well, Texas A&M.

Still, if any conference title means something in this sport, it has to be the SEC title, right?

Georgia should want to play in Atlanta for the second consecutive weekend. It should be wanting to kill their SEC counterparts, to claim supremacy and to head into the CFP with blood dripping from their mouths.

Don’t want to play in the SEC title game?

Want the easier path?

What was that thing Smart said?

“It’s one of those deals, you don’t run from hard in life. You run from hard, you’ll find more hard.”

Remember that, UGA fans, as the games play out.