Georgia Football: Who has the edge in coaching at Rose Bowl?
By Mike Stowe
3. Head coach – Georgia.
This one is a lot closer than a lot of Dawg fans may want to admit. Lincoln Riley has done an excellent job in his first year as head coach of the Sooners. Kirby Smart gets this one by a nose though. He took an 8-5 Georgia team that hadn’t won an SEC championship in over a decade (2005) and in only his second year has transformed them into an SEC championship squad that will now be the only other team in the conference besides Alabama to make the playoffs.
Like I said earlier, Riley has done a remarkable job. But it’s not like Oklahoma was down. They were coming off back to back 11 win seasons that included a 2015 trip to the College football playoff and a Sugar Bowl bludgeoning of Auburn last season. Smart definitely had more of an uphill climb to get Georgia where it is now, and it’s already won him the SEC Coach of the year award. He was already known as a great recruiter. This historic 12-1 SEC championship season has proven that he’s a great in-game coach as well.
Smart also gets the edge because of the change that has occurred under his watch. Oklahoma has barely missed a beat under Riley, but this team feels exactly the same as it did under Bob Stoops. Nothing has changed but the guy at the top. That isn’t the case with Georgia where everything is different from 2015. Simply put, Smart has already made his mark on his program. Riley is yet to do that quite yet.