Kirby Smart’s coaching peers anointed him after Nick Saban retired, but Texas quietly became the bully of the block.
Steve Sarkisian accelerated Texas Longhorns with big linemen and fast wide receivers.
‘Heck of a challenge,’ Steve Sarkisian says of facing Georgia.
Kirby Smart’s coaching peers gave him his flowers after Nick Saban retired, and whether a show of admiration or an attempt to ramp up pressure on Georgia’s coach, no one disputed that Smart stood first in line to rule college football in Saban’s absence.
Saban, Smart’s old boss, had been the one coach Smart couldn’t beat consistently.
With the GOAT on Retirement Avenue, who was going to stop Smart’s mean machine from rumbling unabated down the track?
Brian Kelly joined Kiffin in anointing Smart the apparent ruler.
“I think the mantle has been passed to him,’ LSU’s coach told me before the season.
Heavy lies the crown.
Georgia, ranked No. 1 in the preseason, looked vulnerable throughout the first half of the season.
While Smart struggles under the weight of royalty, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian chowed down on a corndog Saturday, totally at ease, after his Longhorns embarrassed Oklahoma, 34-3.
With the fried fair food polished off, next up for Texas: Chow down on the Dawgs.
No. 1 Texas will host No. 4 Georgia on Saturday.
‘Heck of a challenge,’ Sarkisian said of facing Georgia.
No argument on that, but the Longhorns are favored.
For a three-year span from 2021-23, college football featured no better coach than Smart, and when Saban and Jim Harbaugh departed the scene after last season, Smart’s coronation began. Meanwhile, Sarkisian’s team inched closer to becoming the bully of the block. The Longhorns ascended quietly – at least, as quietly as anything can happen in Texas.
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Smart elevated Georgia to a national championship game appearance in his second season.
Sarkisian marched the Longhorns up the mountain at a more gradual, but steady, pace.
2021: 5-7.
2022: 8-5.
2023: 12-2, College Football Playoff appearance.
2024: 6-0, No. 1 ranking.
When Sarkisian took the Texas job after two seasons as Saban’s offensive coordinator, he asked himself how the Longhorns needed to evolve to compete with Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and Notre Dame.
“Those were the (five) teams that were rotating in the College Football Playoff,” Sarkisian said. “What type of team do we need to have to (compete with them)?”
Sarkisian developed a two-prong strategy. He wanted to transform Texas at the lines of scrimmage and make the Longhorns bigger and more physical. And, he aimed to increase Texas’ speed at wide receiver.
When Sarkisian learned in 2021 that Texas would join the SEC three years later, he didn’t need to alter his strategy, because big linemen and speedy wide receivers are a winning recipe in the SEC, too.
Sarkisian used transfers to reload with a good batch of wide receivers before this season, while developing the SEC’s best offensive line, of which even Smart sounds envious.
“The (Longhorns’) offensive and defensive lines are big and extremely physical,” Smart acknowledged. “… You rarely see the combination of offensive and defensive lines with depth at that size.”
Smart earned his crown, but retaining power can prove as difficult as attaining it.
Here’s what else I’m eyeing in this ‘Topp Rope’ view of college football:
Future of Alabama-Tennessee rivalry in jeopardy?
Alabama and Tennessee will play in the third Saturday in October rivalry that regained steam after the Vols revived under Josh Heupel a few years ago. Tennessee’s 2022 upset to snap a 15-game losing streak to Alabama remains one of the top college football moments of this decade.
As Heupel put it Monday, Nick Saban retiring shouldn’t reduce this rivalry.
“This rivalry has been around a long time before Nick Saban or I was a part of it,” Heupel said. “The magnitude of this rivalry is the historical nature.”
Would the SEC be willing to put history on the shelf?
This game is not guaranteed beyond next season. The SEC has not approved a schedule format for 2026 onward.
Rivalries like the Iron Bowl and Egg Bowl will persist no matter what, but second-level rivalries like Alabama-Tennessee and the LSU-Ole Miss Magnolia Bowl, which delivered an instant classic last week, could be in jeopardy unless the SEC increases from eight to nine conference games in 2026.
A ninth conference game would allow the SEC to earmark three annual rivals for every team, while rotating the six other opponents.
The feeling around the league is that the SEC will increase to nine conference games in 2026, but it expects a pot sweetener from media rights partner ESPN in exchange for the extra SEC game and preserving annual rivalries like Alabama-Tennessee.
An additional conference game would stiffen the schedule. Would the College Football Playoff selection committee reward that? The SEC and Big Ten could put their heads together to possibly recalibrate the playoff format if they’re not satisfied that their scheduling will be otherwise rewarded.
It’s hard to imagine that, when push comes to shove, the SEC would let Alabama-Tennessee slip off the annual schedule.
Emails of the week
My column on potential Florida coaching candidates if the Gators fire Billy Napier and can’t or won’t land Lane Kiffin stirred up quite a response. Here’s a sampling:
Gary writes: I read your article and noticed you didn’t mention Dan Lanning at Oregon as an option to replace Napier.
My response: I’m living in the land of the reasonable. Lanning would be a dang fool to leave Oregon for Florida. With Phil Knight’s checkbook at his disposal, Lanning is well taken care of at Oregon, both in terms of his own paycheck and Oregon’s NIL machine.
Chip writes: You missed the obvious potential candidate to replace Napier if Kiffin says no. Kliff Kingsbury!! That’s who most smart and informed Gator fans want if we can’t get Lane. … In his first year with the Commanders (as Washington’s offensive coordinator), he’s got one of the NFL’s top offenses, and he’s doing it with a rookie quarterback. No Lane? Let’s get Kliff!
My response: If Florida needed an offensive coordinator to scheme plays for Jayden Daniels, then I’d agree Kingsbury would be a good choice. But, that’s not the job. Kingsbury got fired from his two head coaching jobs, at Texas Tech and then the Arizona Cardinals. His career coaching record across college and the NFL is 63-77. Yikes. The only way this hire would make sense is if he could bring Daniels with him.
Three and out
1. How about this: Army and Navy are undefeated.
Playoff selection will occur before the Army-Navy game on Dec. 14. Theoretically, Army or Navy could win the American Athletic championship game, earn the Group of Five playoff bid, and then lose the Army-Navy game before appearing in the playoff.
Army coach Jeff Monken isn’t sweating Navy just yet.
“Do they still have a football program at that school?” Monken quipped about Navy during an interview with ESPN.
Memphis can attest that they do.
2. West Virginia coach Neal Brown stuffed his foot in his mouth following the team’s home loss to Iowa State that dropped the Mountaineers to 3-3.
Win or lose, Brown said, fans ought to have enjoyed the atmosphere they supplied.
“I get that they want to win, but what I would say is, did they have a good time?” Brown said. “Did they enjoy it? It was a pretty good atmosphere. You know, I’m assuming they probably had a pretty good time tailgating.”
Sure, I’d bet the tailgate was fun, but Busch Light goes down just as smoothly tailgating in your garage before watching the home team lose on TV. It’s cheaper, too.
3. Oregon’s Dan Lanning sent 12 defenders on the field in the final seconds of the Ducks’ 32-31 victory over Ohio State, willing to trade a 5-yard penalty, while time drained off the clock, in exchange for an extra defender to help prevent the Buckeyes from hitting a big play. A clever move, which caused the NCAA to adjust its rules.
Elsewhere, Florida’s Billy Napier accidentally sent 12 men out for a field goal just before halftime of the Gators’ 23-17 overtime loss to Tennessee. The Gators were flagged, assessed yardage and a clock runoff, preventing them from trying the field goal again.
The duality of man.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
The ‘Topp Rope’ is his football column published throughout the USA TODAY Network.
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