Buckle up, folks! Time for some real drama. Looks like no force can now stop Georgia Bulldogs HC Kirby Smart. After all, the Dawgs landed a fresh 22-19 blow to Steve Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns in the SEC Championship. Isn’t this enough for Georgia to throw a grand party? Well, celebrations can wait! As of now, Smart is busy zipping up his haters’ mouths. Luckily, he found one of their biggest critics, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, on stage. Woah! Some serious revenge by the Dawgs, we must say. While Sankey initially embraced the “silence is golden” mantra, he later broke it with a big applause. 

At the SEC championship game on Saturday, Smart and Co.’s victory against the Longhorns came with an additional prize: a first-round bye in the College Football Playoffs. During his postgame interview with ESPN’s Laura Rutledge, Smart was asked what it meant for them. Looked like Smart had been waiting for this moment with bated breath and had already prepared a reply. With Sankey on the stage and cameras rolling, Smart blurted out, pointing fingers at the SEC commissioner, “It means rest for a team that Greg Sankey and his staff sent on the road all year long!”

Well, Smart can’t be blamed much for holding such bitter feelings for the official. After all, he did give Georgia a hard time this season. Sankey had specially curated the schedule where the Bulldogs had four games on the road, all of which were insanely tough. Their SEC road games included Alabama, Texas, and Ole Miss, along with Tennessee and the annual neutral-site game with Florida. It’s not that Smart and his boys turned every obstacle in their favor. There have been some big misses as they got narrowly passed by the Kentucky Wildcats and even lost to No.4 Alabama. 

Well, now you know how the Dawgs must have been mentally drained out by now. And who knows it better than their HC Smart? So when asked about their plan ahead, he stated, “We get to take a little bit of a break and get ready for College Football Playoffs. This team needs some rest mentally, needs a little time off.” All this while, Sankey stood there with a straight face, not having much to say or defend himself from Smart’s wrath. It’s not known if Smart will face any disciplinary action for publicly criticizing the league’s commissioner, but doesn’t look like he would mind if there is one. Ironically, just ahead of the championship game, Sankey had lauded the SEC strength of schedule.

Speaking on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday, the league commissioner returned to a much-talked point: The SEC’s strength of schedule is unmatched. There was a debate a week ago whether Alabama, which finished 9-3 this season under first-year head coach Kalen DeBoer, should be ranked ahead of 10-2 Miami. In fact, the CFP selection committee was ripped by several analysts as well as fans on social media for putting three-loss Alabama ahead of two-loss Miami. But Sankey thinks the way the Crimson Tide, or any SEC team, proved itself against their conference schedule makes them worthy of a playoff spot.

Specifically, Sankey cited a composite strength of schedule rating that combines the Massey and Sagarin ratings with ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) which he said has 14 of 16 SEC teams ahead of the rest of the teams ranked in the CFP. The final two SEC teams are still ahead of some CFP-ranked teams in strength of schedule, he added.

“There has to be recognition. Like I could pull out my email and show you our 16 teams’ strength of schedule. And this is not my rating, this Massey, FPI and Sagarin combined. So you combine all of those, 14 of our teams’ strength of schedule is greater than the first of the other Top 25 CFP teams. In other words: 14 of our 16 have stronger schedules than the next CFP team. And then the next two follow and then everybody else in the CFP Top 25 rankings has a lesser schedule than our 16 teams when you use that metric,” Sankey said. In fact, he again spoke on the same line during an appearance on College GameDay on Saturday.

On that show, Sankey supported the CFP committee’s call to put Alabama in over Miami, and he boldly stated he was tired of having to defend that. “When you look at the principles, the first thing listed is strength of schedule. It’s not about just losses, it’s about how you challenge yourself,” Sankey argued. And there is also something that Kirby Smart might love to hear.

Greg Sankey’s tough love for Kirby Smart’s Georgia 

Maybe deep down Sankey gives himself a pat on the back for unleashing the best potential in Smart’s Georgia. The tough schedule had somehow kept them on their toes, with a hunger to do better. On the College GameDay the commissioner stated, “We’re 8-3 against ACC teams during the season. You watch Georgia start [the season] at Mercedes-Benz Stadium with a resounding win, you watch South Carolina with a big win — both over Clemson — this is the strongest league in college football and it needs to be respected for that”

But college football fans hardly care. If you try to mess up with their favorite team, they are going to give you a hard time. That’s what happened with Sankey too, as a dialogue started to roll among fans that he is the one who pulls the strings. However, he came up with a sharp reply to the haters, saying, “People think I’m the puppeteer. Good, because that means they’re worrying about the wrong things.”

Well, whether Greg Sankey truly believes or just whitewash his image in front of the college football fans, we don’t know that. But the official finally said something positive about Smart’s Georgia. “I think this is the best conference in college football,” Sankey said. “The competition is second to none.” But at least Kirby Smart can now thank Greg Sankey for gifting them the toughest schedule in the SEC this season.