Urban Meyer wrongly mocks Georgia for scheduling nine home games in 2025

Dating back as his days roaming the Florida Gators sidelines, there’s no love lost between Urban Meyer and the Georgia Bulldogs. Even in his role as a FOX Sports analyst, the former Ohio State coach rarely misses an opportunity to lob a dig in the direction of Georgia head coach Kirby Smart.

Only, the lastest one left Meyer with egg on his face during a recent episode on The Triple Option podcast with co-hosts Mark Ingram and Rob Stone.

Before jumping into a segment evaluating Georgia’s Vegas-projected 9.5 over-under win total in 2025, Meyer first recalled a story from coaching mentor Earle Bruce about a meeting with Paul “Bear” Bryant in which the legendary Alabama coach told Bruce that “scheduling” is the most important key to success.

“So, I’m sitting here looking … at Georgia’s schedule and they’re playing nine – this is an SEC schedule, man – nine games at home,” Meyer said with derision in his voice. “(That includes home games against) Marshall, Austin Peay and Charlotte. … Come on Kirby, what in the world is that? So that’s the Bear Bryant (model) right there.”

Of course, Georgia doesn’t have nine home games. Instead, the Bulldogs’ 2025 football schedule features seven home games inside Athens’ Sanford Stadium with two neutral-site games — against Florida in Jacksonville, Fla., and against Georgia Tech in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which will be a designated home game for the Yellow Jackets.

Meyer then doubled-down by criticizing Georgia’s 2025 conference road games at Mississippi State, “which is not that hard right now,” at Auburn, which he said “has been down a little bit,” and at Tennessee, which Meyer admitted “is a real one.”

After getting off his jokes, Meyer and The Triple Option crew evaluated the Bulldogs’ 2025 schedule game-by-game — with Stone acknowledging Georgia’s two neutral-site games against Florida and Georgia Tech — though each ended up agreeing with the Vegas oddsmakers. Ingram even predicted 10 wins for Georgia.

Kirby Smart pleads for college football to avoid devaluing regular season

Given the uncertainty of what’s next for the College Football Playoff, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart made it clear he doesn’t favor any CFP format that devalues the regular season.

“I don’t want to devalue the regular season. I do think there’s a lot of value in the regular season. I don’t think a team that I guess like Texas last year, they’re the 1-seed going into the SEC Championship and there are scenarios out there that (now) they’d have a play-in game? I don’t know if I agree with that,” Smart said Tuesday from the Sandestin Hilton, home of the annual SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Fla. 

“They can play a championship game or they can play a game, but there should be some value to a regular season in terms of how you perform and what you do. You don’t see a regular season basketball champion going into SEC Tournament play and then not make the (NCAA) Tournament. It’s not going to happen, right? … But I enjoy the SEC Championship. I’m a firm believer in that, but I’m going to support whatever as a conference we choose to do in that format.”