The first edition of the College Football Playoff rankings is set to come out Tuesday evening. For Georgia this is another opportunity to be recognized as one of the nation’s best teams, and it’s looking like they’ll be ranked No. 2 this evening.
That can be a dangerous place to be for some teams because it can cause them to become complacent and feel like they’ve already accomplished something, but this is the exact spot Kirby Smart wants to be in.
Kirby Smart’s familiar message will be a focus after CFP rankings
Throughout Smart’s entire career at Georgia he constantly preaches to his team about avoiding feeling complacent. He’s had ample opportunities to discuss this with his team over the years since Georgia has been ranked high most of his tenure, and this year will be no different.
Georgia more than likely will be ranked No. 2 when the CFP rankings come out and it would be easy to celebrate that, in reality though Georgia hasn’t accomplished anything. They haven’t even earned their spot in the playoff field yet, so there really isn’t any reason to celebrate being ranked this high.
Georgia’s loss to Auburn earlier this year is one way Smart can impress on his team to not get complacent because that defeat showed them what can happen if they take their foot off the gas. So when Georgia is ranked high in the CFP rankings Tuesday evening Smart will have plenty of ammunition to keep his team grounded and focused on the season ahead.
Georgia’s pitch to be CFP’s No. 1 team over Miami
Georgia moved up a spot to No. 2 in this week’s AP Poll. This also is the most likely landing spot for them in the CFP rankings when they come out as undefeated Miami will probably be ranked No. 1. Georgia however might deserve that ranking instead.
Sure Georgia has their loss to a 4-4 Auburn team, but Miami has had a few bad wins this season. This includes controversially beating North Carolina this past week by three points and needing overtime to beat a terrible Florida State team. Georgia on the other hand doesn’t have a bad win, they have seven impressive victories with their one bad loss.
Speaking of those victories, Georgia has three top 30 Sagarin wins while Miami only has one. That alone could be enough to deserve the No. 1 ranking over Miami.
At the end of the day though it doesn’t matter if Georgia is No. 1 or No. 2. Neither ranking will accomplish their true goal of winning a national championship as Georgia will still have work to do regardless of what they’re ranked. Smart will also be able to preach his same message about complacency whether they are No. 1 or No. 2 as well.
All Georgia can do right now is focus on winning each game they play. If they do that then they’ll finish the season as the national champions, and that is the only thing that actually matters.
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