The biggest storyline entering Georgia's matchup with Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff is Lane Kiffin's absence from the Rebels program. After that all the talk is centered around this being a rematch from earlier this season.
Georgia won the first matchup by eight points in what was one of the best games of this season. Many college football experts believe that Ole Miss will have a lot of added motivation to get revenge and beat Georgia this time while also thinking Kirby Smart and his team will have learned a lot from the first matchup this season.
Smart however doesn't believe this narrative the college football world is selling because he believes the first meeting will have close to zero impact on this matchup.
“Like we talked about with Alabama, it’s really overrated in terms of rematches… How you played determines the outcome of the football game… It really has very little to do with the time before when you played him.”
Kirby Smart on rematches…
— Graham Coffey (@GrahamCoffeyDC) December 22, 2025
“Like we talked about with Alabama, it’s really overrated in terms of rematches… How you played determines the outcome of the football game… It really has very little to do with the time before when you played him.”
Kirby Smart shares unique perspective heading into rematch with Ole Miss
Smart believes that there is too much hype that surrounds these rematches. He thinks that what happened earlier this season will have close to no impact on this second meeting because next week's game will be completely different from the first one.
Sure Georgia will be able to scout Ole Miss a little better since they already saw how they played them once. But Ole Miss will be able to scout them just as well tool, so neither team really gets an advantage there. But if the college football world should listen to anyone on this topic it is Smart because he is a perfect 4-0 in his career in rematches. This includes their SEC Championship victory over Alabama two weeks ago.
So whenever an analyst tries to talk about how important this game being a rematch is just know that Smart believes the exact opposite. He thinks it actually has no impact whatsoever and that everyone should be viewing this game just like they do every other game throughout the year.