Kirby Smart has been the consensus No. 1 head coach in all of college football since Nick Saban retired. After winning back-to-back SEC Championships one would assume that has not changed.
But CBS Sports decided to do something insane and move him down a spot to No. 2 in their head coach rankings entering this season.
Who is the one coach who passed him? That would be Indiana's Curt Cignetti who somehow did enough to pass Smart after just one good season at Indiana.
“Kirby Smart is in a similar boat to (Ryan) Day right now,” Tom Fornelli said via cbssports.com. “He's one of the most accomplished coaches in the country. He's won two national titles, and every year his program is expected to compete for another. But last year ended on a sour note. The Dawgs won the SEC again but failed to win a playoff game. They have not won a playoff game since winning the national title in 2022. I don't think that's why Smart fell out of the No. 1 spot (it's more about the accomplishments of the man who usurped him), but it probably played a role. Smart still received four first-place votes (one from me), but it wasn't enough to hold onto No. 1.”
CBS Sports hilariously ranked Curt Cignetti ahead of Kirby Smart
CBS Sports rationale for moving Cignetti ahead of Smart is simple. After seeing Georgia win back-to-back national titles in 2021 and 2022 they have been unable to win a playoff game since. That is definitely a knock for a program like Georgia, but is it enough to move Smart down the head coach ranks?
It would be if Georgia were losing a lot of games outside of the playoff, but the Bulldogs have remained the best team in the SEC in the three years since those National Championships.
In 2023 Georgia went 12-0 before losing in the SEC Championship game. They arguably still should've made the four-team playoff that year where they could've won another title, but a 13-1 record shouldn't hurt Smart.
The past two years Smart and Georgia did go winless in the CFP which is a bad look, but the Bulldogs won the SEC both years. In what world is that not a good thing? How does a couple losses in the playoff to really good teams eliminate how impressive it is to win the SEC two years in a row?
Then there is Cignetti who is the coach who passed Smart to take over the No. 1 spot. Cignetti has had just one good year at Indiana, so how is that enough to surpass the countless good years Smart has had at Georgia? Cignetti needs to prove he can win for more than one year if he is ever going to enter the seam realm as Smart.
CBS Sports has some more explaining to do because this feels like an attempt to grab as much attention as possible. Anyone who thinks Cignetti is better than Smart either doesn't know football or is trolling for attention, and it seems like the latter would apply to CBS Sports in this case.
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