Kirby Smart is the guy who’s believed to be the mantle of college football, especially after Nick Saban left the game. However, his recent actions are anything but that of someone who deserves to be the coaching face of the sport in college. In the Bulldogs’ 41-31 victory over the MS State, Smart had a rather unpleasant moment that he’d like the whole world to forget. During the 4th quarter of the game, he was seen shoving the opposing QB, Michael Van Buren, on the sidelines during the end of a play. On his part, Smart continues to defend himself, claiming ‘ignorance’ about doing it intentionally. However, analysts and fans see it differently.

Analysts Urban Meyer, Mark Ingram, and Rob Stone addressed the controversy in their show, The Triple Option. The trio didn’t mince their words while calling out Smart. Alabama legend Ingram was particularly harsh on the Bulldogs’ head coach.

“Coach, man, come on. Well, here’s the thing, and Coach, you know it so well, being in Columbus, you know, like, the first name that comes to mind when you see a coach touch a player that’s not on his team is what he has, right? You have that incident, but that’s like, ruin coaching, like, do not touch players on the other team, right? I mean, that’s like coaching 101; yeah, He’s someone’s child. I was shocked when I saw that. I know Kirby as well. I’ve known him a long time. And first of all, I can’t imagine there was any intent, however it happened. Should there be a recourse there? Should it happen?”

See, that’s the kind of consequence when a coach does a thing like this. Mark Ingram had an obvious message for Kirby Smart to cut the crap.

Although earlier, Kirby Smart claimed that he wanted to get the attention of his DC Glenn Schumann, and Buren just ran into them, that’s why it appeared as if Smart was shoving him. But our analysts here do not believe that narrative.

“I mean, to me, players and coaches need to be treated the same. Can you imagine if a player did that to a coach, the players, not the players? Something’s happened. I don’t think the player got played the next game. Yeah, so, yeah. I was disappointed to saw that. But once again, I know Kirby. I was shocked when I saw that,” Ingram said.

Yeah, that’s the exact sentiment of the fans as well. Some of them were even pointing out that if it had been Deion Sanders instead of him, people would have gone mad about it. So, as Ingram says, if we had a player instead of Smart, he might have gotten banned from playing the next game. Are we on the same page when we say Smart denied shoving him initially and told him that he had no clue about it all? Well, he has a better answer now. Let’s learn what he says now.

Kirby Smart on shoving Van Buren

So after last Saturday’s game ended with Georgia’s 41-31 victory at Stanford Stadium, Smart was immediately questioned about his behavior towards Van Buren. We saw that clip, right? Even a blind man can tell that he shoved the young guy! But he says that if it was intentional, he would have received a penalty. This is actually true; although everyone expected he would get one, in reality, he did not receive any. Which gives some weight to Smart’s words.

But now Smart finally had some time to revisit the moment after which he said, “After you guys said that in the press conference,, I went back and watched it and didn’t even realize I’d run into him. But I reached out to Lebby that night and talked to him and he said the kid was great.” after which he continued explaining that he also confronted Mike. Assured him he did not have anything against him at all.

Well, he might be right, because when you watch that video very carefully, you will notice Kirby Smart was not even looking at Van Buren. With that, he can get the benefit of the doubt, but it looks like his haters can’t. Just got a point to call out to him, especially after the recent controversies of the Bulldogs. Remember the arrest of one of Georgia’s players following the charges of an attack on an unborn child? Let’s hope Kirby Smart and Georgia do exactly as well as they do on the field.