It hasn’t been the strongest season thus far in the Southeastern conference. While the SEC is still the SEC, it seems this season has been missing that second gear of absolute dominance over the rest of college football.
Georgia is ranked No. 2 in the CFP rankings behind Ohio State, while Alabama sits at No. 8 and the Big 10 and Pac-12 seem to have been the latest flavor of the month in the larger college football media landscape.
Barring something absolutely crazy — it is extremely unlikely that the SEC will get two teams in the College Football Playoff — something it did in both 2017 and 2021 when Alabama and Georgia met in both national championship matchups.
That hasn’t stopped Kirby Smart from talking up the conference every chance he gets, with the latest example to Pat McAfee, filmed live in Athens with ESPN’s College Gameday, in town for the Dawgs’ matchup against Ole Miss.
WATCH:
“There’s an open invitation. Call Greg Sankey, come down here and get you some of this SEC if you want it.”
Kirby Smart not holding back 😂 @PatMcAfeeShow pic.twitter.com/DJFEKkFsDl
— ESPN (@espn) November 10, 2023
“The playoff rankings literally have not come across my desk. I don’t care, my team does not care. We just want to get in the four, that’s the goal right? In the SEC, you’ve gotta do it every week right?”
At that point McAfee jumped in and joked “it’s easy this year right?” referencing the national media narrative around the SEC, to which Smart responded with some heat.
“Oh yeah, according to everybody else. There’s an open invitation. Call Greg Sankey, come down here and get you some of this SEC if you want it.”
Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP
