There was a collective exhale throughout the college football world when Nick Saban announced his retirement in January, especially from a certain program to the east.
Former Saban staffer and now Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was denied an opportunity to three-peat as champion last season when the Crimson Tide defeated the Bulldogs in the SEC Championship.
But with Saban now gone, Smart has now reportedly set his attention to a different SEC program as his program’s biggest threat to success in 2024 which is Texas.
DawgNation’s Mike Griffith shared this glimpse into the mindset of Smart during an appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show on Friday where he revealed that Alabama doesn’t cross the head coach’s mind that much nowadays.
“Georgia doesn’t think too much, Kirby doesn’t think too much about Alabama,” Griffith said. “Really the Oct. 19 game at Texas is the big headache.”
Finebaum was quick to remind Griffith of Georgia’s Week 4 road trip to Tuscaloosa this fall, but Griffith affirmed that what he’d been hearing was that the Longhorns’ talent, coaching continuity and finances have propelled them to the front of the Bulldogs’ biggest concerns. To rub a bit of salt into a Saban-sized wound, Griffith also referred to Alabama as a second-tier SEC team this season.
“That’s a staff that’s been in place, that’s a team that beat Alabama by 10 points in Tuscaloosa last year,” Griffith said. “That’s an impressive program that Steve Sarksian’s built and they’re a real threat to the SEC with their budget. So, to me, I think that’s the big threat right now.
“People talk about Texas and Georgia at the top of the SEC and then you get into the second tiers: The Alabamas, Tennessee, LSU, Ole Miss and Missouri.”
As the team currently stands, new head coach Kalen DeBoer certainly has his work cut out with him. With massive roster turnover due to the transfer portal, de-commitments and major staff turnover, the tides have been rough for college football’s premier program.
But with spring football approaching and the reopening of the transfer portal soon after, DeBoer will have an opportunity to sure up the team to make a run in the SEC this fall.
"Kirby doesn't think too much about Alabama…Texas is the big headache" in 2024…
We buying this from @MikeGriffith32 ??? pic.twitter.com/7B8Vt29blt
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) February 16, 2024
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