Georgia football coach Kirby Smart deserves all the blame for Florida loss

Kirby Smart must look in the mirror and accept all blame for Georgia’s loss to Florida.

Though players have to make plays, Kirby Smart did not put his team in position to succeed.

For the first time since 2016, the Georgia Bulldogs have dropped its biggest game of the year vs. the arch rival Florida Gators down in Jacksonville. It did not matter how banged up the Dawgs were on both sides of the ball. What did matter was Smart’s Georgia defense could not stop a nosebleed and once again, he made the wrong decision at the quarterback position. It has to stop.

While it probably was not the Dawgs’ year anyway, Georgia has looked second-class twice this season vs. the two best SEC teams it will play. The road loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide nearly a month ago was expected, but Georgia did not need to lose as badly as it did to Florida on Saturday evening. The shame in it all is all of Dawg Nation could see it coming. Too bad Smart did not listen.

His horrendous botch job of the quarterback position has the Dawgs at 4-2 on the year and praying for a snowball’s chance to get a New Year’s Six bowl invitation. Georgia went from Jake Fromm in January to Jamie Newman, to JT Daniels, to D’Wan Mathis, to Stetson Bennett IV now back to Mathis. Fromm went pro, Newman opted out and Daniels has yet to see the field for UGA.

Dawg Nation was begging Smart to not start Bennett vs. Florida after what we saw the previous two games vs. Alabama and on the road vs. the Kentucky Wildcats. Georgia got blasted in the second half vs. the Crimson Tide, and Bennett looked terrible. Even though the Dawgs beat the ‘Cats in Lexington, it was only a 14-3 victory for Georgia, and Bennett had two awful interceptions.

Daniels must be hurt or a complete shell of himself in practice for him not to see the field. This is a guy who won the USC Trojans starting job back in 2018. He was the starter until he tore his ACL in USC’s season opener last year vs. the Fresno State Bulldogs. Does he regret transferring across the country to Athens to not even play for this team? It is despicable how bad Smart botched this.

For whatever reason, Mathis was leading in fall camp over Newman, the former graduate transfer quarterback from Wake Forest. He got terrible advice and decided to opt out and turn pro. Had he stayed, Georgia might be undefeated and vying for its first national championship since 1980. But, you know, here we are with the same old sorry quarterbacking crap that has mired the Smart era.

And even if Bennett is seen as the team’s best option, regardless of how pathetically sad that is, what in the hell happened to Dan Lanning’s defense vs. the Gators? Do not give me the everybody was banged up nonsense. Everybody knew about Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney heading into this game. Georgia ended up looking like a Big 12 pillow fight defense in Jacksonville.

While Smart has time to figure it out as a head coach, he is starting to develop some terrible habits in his fifth year leading his alma mater. Dawg Nation has absolutely no faith in his ability to evaluate quarterback talent. This is a guy who inherited Jacob Eason and gained Justin Fields’ commitment and he did not play either of them. Fromm was his guy and it was Bennett in 2020.

Georgia is too talented of a team to be mismanaged like this by its defensive-minded head coach.

For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.