Kirby Smart just got inspiration for his next catchphrase – from F1
Kirby Smart isn’t shy about his motivational catchphrases. Say what you will about ‘Choppin’ Wood,’ ‘Attack the Day’ and ‘Toughness, composure, physicality,’ but they work.
Well, enter the latest candidate for Kirby Smart’s list of verbiage that helps launch his team to a National Championship.
This one from Formula 1 Red Bull boss Christian Horner – by way of my guys Ryan McGee and Marty Smith of ‘Marty and McGee’ – applies to the Dawgs for sure.
“A pat on the back is only six inches away from a kick in the ass,” Horner told Smith and McGee on location from the pre-race festivities in Miami.
Yes, Horner’s quip refers to Red Bull’s racing success.
But if that succinct summation of fleeting glory doesn’t encapsulate what Kirby Smart’s Georgia football program is all about right now, then Sanford Stadium may as well lose its hedges.
Are there parallels between Kirby Smart’s SEC football program and Christian Horner’s F1 race team? Sure, let’s go there
For the longest time, Red Bull looked up at a dominant racing team.
The standard of its sport.
Title after title, championship after championship.
An unmistakable brand name and the world’s most famous figure in the sport.
Then, all of a sudden, Red Bull’s tried and true commitment to be the best carried its hot-shot driver to the top.
Not once. But in back-to-back seasons.
Ok, so Kirby Smart and Christian Horner aren’t a true 1:1 comparison. Maybe Max Verstappen and Stetson Bennett are better foils for one another.
But the pattern is there from a brand-name standpoint.
The ‘Mercedes-Benz’ and Lewis Hamilton of College Football – Alabama and Nick Saban – is currently looking up at Georgia’s ‘Red Bull.’
Honorable mentions for Kirby Smart catchprases
When I quote-tweeted McGee’s excerpt from his show today, I got some good feedback similar to Christian Horner’s turn of the ‘pat on the back’ phrase.
Georgia punting legend and Bulldogs royalty Drew Butler with a more sophisticated mantra off the vine:
“Wine & Grapes. One day you’re drinking the wine, the next you’re squashing the grapes.”
Put that on a t-shirt, son.
And ‘JonTweetsSports’ came through with a classic:
“One day you’re the peacock, the next you’re the feather duster.”
So true, fellas.
But I think Kirby Smart has everyone beat with the ‘backstabber’ reference from early on in his Georgia career, via The O’Jays’s ‘Backstabbers.’
I’m paraphrasing here, but Smart’s rendition – not unlike Horner’s – goes something like this:
‘One day they smile in your face. The next they’re ready to stab you in the back.
Consider the source material:
Blades are long, clenched tight in their fist
Aimin’ straight at your back
And I don’t think they’ll miss
What they do? They smilin’ in your face
All the time, they want to take your place
The back stabbers (Back stabbers)
Three-peats ain’t easy. Whether they’re kicking you in the tail or stabbing you in the back, you better keep your head on a swivel.
