What happened to Kirby Smart? “I just want to fight for my team and fight for our program.”

ATHENS, Ga. – In the nine years that Paul Finebaum had interviewed Kirby Smart, it was as animated as Finebaum had seen Smart. They were on set together on Georgia’s campus last month, a day before the Dawgs’ game against Tennessee. It was three days after the College Football Playoff committee dropped Smart’s team from the projected field, and Smart couldn’t hide his disgust.

“He was great on the air. From the sky he was out of this world. I mean, he was really angry,” Finebaum recalled last week. “I appreciated his candor. But it has been a remarkable shift, especially in the last two years.”

And Smart wasn’t done yet. A night later, he rejoined the selection committee during his ABC postgame interview. And Smart still wasn’t done: A few weeks later, Smart took an unprompted shot — maybe playful, maybe not — at SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who was standing a few feet away.

It was refreshing for those who want good content. To those who have watched Smart and his sideline activities from a distance, it may seem obvious. But for those who have kept a close eye on Smart over the years, it’s a big change, and it says a lot about where Smart and No. 2 Georgia stand as they prepare for their CFP quarterfinal matchup.

Smart has mostly tried to avoid the headlines, a trait he picked up from Nick Saban: do your job, worry about your team, ignore the critics and outside noise. The tone was set the summer of Smart’s freshman year, when then-Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh grilled Smart on Twitter about satellite camps. When asked, Smart replied, “What tweet?” with a wry, knowing smile. He was ready to spread the story.

This season, Smart was prepared to light the fuse.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs will play Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. (Joshua L. Jones/USA Today Network via Imagn images)

After Georgia’s win in Texas, Smart didn’t hold back his ESPN postgame interview after officials overturned a call in favor of Texas when fans threw debris on the field: “You know, these players are getting the best of me. And I’m so proud of these guys. Because no one believed. Nobody gave us a chance. Your entire network doubted us. Nobody believed us. And then they try to rob us here with phone calls.”

The shot at the “College GameDay” analysts picking against Georgia was not new. Smart did so after his team’s second national championship victory. But “they’re trying to rob us” was unusual. Smart, a member of the NCAA rules committee, rarely criticized his performance and did not join calls from Georgia fans after the 2018 national championship game. Now he jumped in despite actually winning the game.

After his team’s win over Tennessee, Smart expressed his frustration to the CFP committee. again in his ESPN postgame interview: “I don’t know what they’re looking for. I really don’t know what they’re looking for anymore. I would welcome anyone on that committee to come to this league and play in this environment.”

And finally, Smart was asked in the interview after the SEC Championship Game win what it meant to get a first-round bye: “It means rest for a team that Greg Sankey and his staff sent out… all…year…long!”

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Sankey stood stone-faced a few feet away, but only because he couldn’t hear what Smart was saying amid audio problems on stage, according to people who were there. Not that Sankey and his staff could be particularly happy about it; Georgia had just navigated that schedule to a conference championship, so Finebaum on his SEC Network show called Smart “out of line.” (The SEC championship in Atlanta came after three straight home games, so Georgia had already been in its home state for almost a month.)

“I probably reacted a little quickly to that, not knowing how complicated the story (on stage) was,” Finebaum said. “But it was still a pretty dramatic moment for him.”

Smart was asked last month after the Tennessee game why he had been more forthcoming this year. He shrugged and said it just has more to do with there being more things to be open about.

“The two years before that there wasn’t much,” he said. “The year we were 14-1 and 15-0, there weren’t many complaints. There’s not much to fight for. You take care of things on the field and handle your business. You don’t have to say a lot of things.

“That was a pretty unique situation when you talk about Texas. I don’t know if I’ve ever been part of something like that, and I’m not… I wasn’t mad at them. I just didn’t understand it, I’ve never seen that happen, but I would have said that every year.

But the next thing Smart said got to the heart of the matter: “I just want to fight for my team and fight for our program, because I think we have a deserving group of young men who work very hard, and I’m sure every coach would fight for his boys.”

But this happened amid two years of bad publicity about his program. Ten Georgia players and one staff member have been arrested for driving-related violations since a January 2023 car crash that killed a player and staff member. Arrests have been made for non-driving issues. Given all this, you’d almost expect Smart to take the opposite approach and call Mr. Nice Guy would be the face of the program.

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However, Finebaum pointed out that Smart has chosen his words much more carefully when it comes to off-field issues.

“The one thing I’ll give him credit for is that despite all the bad news in the offseason, I think he came through it really well,” Finebaum said. “And it didn’t seem to become a constant theme, like situations like this at other schools.”

Finebaum has another theory for Smart’s newfound candor: The pressure is off. There’s no push for a three-peat or a repeat for that or trying to get the first national championship for that.

“Everything felt more tense (before). You could feel the gravity of the moment,” Finebaum said. ‘That all disappeared in Athens a few weeks ago. It was me against the world, and he seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Smart has used that story of Georgia against the world before, especially on the way to the second championship. It became such a cliché that Smart distanced himself from it a bit. It was harder to play the disrespect card when Georgia was the consensus No. 1 team, even after not winning three times last year.

Then came this season’s series of on-field setbacks. Smart called his team the “never say those Dawgs.” They made things difficult for themselves and outplayed their competition, but they still lifted the SEC championship trophy.

Now it’s time for the Playoff, where Georgia may be in the perfect position, at least to Smart’s liking: it’s not the favorite, mainly because it has to go to its backup quarterback, so there are plenty of choices for the Bulldogs to be one. and done in the tournament.

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Somehow you could say that Georgia is playing with house money.

“Ultimately, the way the season ends will help frame the story,” Finebaum said. “If Georgia somehow wins the title with everything they’ve overcome, with the schedule, with Carson Beck’s injury, I think that will elevate Georgia to an even higher status. And right now, I think they’re on the very top shelf of college football. … But I think if (Georgia) can pull this off, it won’t make up for not winning a three-peat, but it will put Georgia in a completely different stratosphere.”

(Top photo: Butch Dill/Getty Images)