One of the biggest reasons to not buy into the national media trap of crowning Tennessee before the Volunteers are ready for their SEC coronation would be that of Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart. He is 8-1 in nine chances vs. the Vols since taking over at Georgia in 2016. In fact, he has won eight in a row over his school's rival. Josh Heupel has yet to beat Georgia since taking over in 2021...
But with all that in mind, Georgia is losing more and more ground in the betting odds realm. The Dawgs are still a slight road favorite, but the line has dropped from Georgia laying a touchdown to now only 3.5 points. Tennessee is being tabbed as the popular favorite to pull of the upset, but these are the kind of games players come to Georgia for, according to Smart. He seems very confident, too.
While he does have a lot of resect for Heupel and the Tennessee program, his team is ready for them.
How Kirby Smart's Georgia Bulldogs prepare for Tennessee Volunteers
When asked about the physicality Tennessee plays with, Smart recognizes it is a trend with the team.
"Well, they've been really good games, right? When you play in the SEC and you're in these really tough top-10 matchups, top-25 matchups, they can go either way a lot of times. At the end of the day, they've played us physical, we've played them physical. They're all been really, really tough, physical games."
As far as how Georgia can go about preparing for that, it has everything to do with preseason camp.
"Camp, our preseason camp is extremely physical. We prepare during that time as if we're playing each other. So it's what we do each day. It's what we believe in. I don't think you can prepare the next five days for it. No."
Here is everything Smart said during his press conference in the lead-up to the Tennessee game.
Have the Dawgs done enough in the lead-up to this game to keep their top-10 ranking into Week 4?
Georgia has overlooked other opponents before, but never Tennessee
Throughout Smart's tenure in Athens, Georgia has done a phenomenal job beating many of its rivals with great regularity. Georgia's dominance over programs such as Auburn, Florida, Georgia Tech and Tennessee have not gone unnoticed. While his team's struggles with Alabama are well-documented, it is honestly quite difficult to find another program his team has had its issue with. Maybe it is LSU?
What is important to understand is there is a one-game difference between how well Smart has done vs. Tennessee (8-1) when compared to how well Georgia has played against Kentucky over the last decade (9-0). That might be a very disrespectful stat, but it is reality. Truth be told, both the Volunteers and the Wildcats always play Georgia physically on defense. They just struggle to score.
In the end, until Tennessee can show it can put up points at will on this defense, in conjunction with Georgia's offense sputtering due to poor execution and constant turnovers, the Dawgs will have the upper hand in this rivalry. That is not to say that Tennessee cannot occasionally get one past Georgia, but we have not seen it since Butch Jones was sobbing like a buffoon after Dobbs Nail Boot in 2016.
Heupel is a much better coach than Jones ever was, but he has still yet to get one past Smart to date.