Kirby Smart take on SEC adopting a 9-game conference schedule

The biggest SEC scheduling news in years didn’t register with Kirby Smart at first.

Georgia’s head coach has been intently focused on the Bulldogs’ fall camp and preparing for the season opener against Marshall. So when the SEC officially adopted a nine-game conference schedule last Thursday, Smart initially didn’t think too much about it.

Those conversations took place throughout the offseason.

“I don’t have a preference,” Smart said at SEC Media Days this summer. “Forever, I was a nine-game proponent because it was better for our fan bases. It was better for television. It was better for increasing revenue, which is a huge demand right now on college athletics. So I like the idea of nine. My concern with the idea of nine is, you know, how are we picking the 12 or 14 teams and who’s picking them and what do they value? Because I don’t think we saw value in adding nine more losses to our league last year in terms of the way they pick the teams.”

Smart said Monday that he felt “no real shock” when the league passed the nine-game schedule. The move had long been anticipated for the SEC and had been a talking point for several years.

The new format also comes with three protected rivalries for each school. Who does Smart think should be Georgia’s annual opponents?

“As far as the balance of the three games or the preference of the three games, I don’t really have a preference on that,” Smart said. “I do think traditional rivalries are important. I enjoy those, having been a traditionalist and grew up in the state of Georgia, but I don’t know one way or the other. You got to win the games you play, man.”

Georgia’s 2025 SEC schedule begins with a road trip to Tennessee on September 13. The Bulldogs also travel to Auburn, Mississippi State, and Jacksonville to play Florida. Georgia hosts Alabama, Kentucky, Ole Miss, and Texas in Sanford Stadium.