The Fun Died in Committee

GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Friday, September 25, 2026

Kirby Smart says the Playoff committee's arithmetic killed the Clemson series, and now television's own committee has passed on Athens too.

ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk

Kirby Smart did something rare for a football coach this week: he named names. Asked why Georgia canceled its home-and-home series with Clemson — five games, 2029 through 2033, the kind fans circle in ink — Smart pointed straight at the College Football Playoff committee, telling DawgNation the committee doesn't reward strength of schedule. In other words, Georgia offered to go play somebody dangerous, checked the arithmetic, and found the arithmetic didn't care. So the games are off, and the committee gets the bill.

"A lot of college football right now is questioning the decision-making of committees," Smart said, allowing in the same breath that the games are "what the fans want." He's right on both counts, which is the sad part. Nothing in America dies faster than a good idea sent to a committee. I have sat on committees. We met two hours, agreed the coffee was weak, and adjourned until fall. Somewhere in a conference room, Georgia-Clemson got the same treatment.

Nothing in America dies faster than a good idea sent to a committee.

Meanwhile television convened a committee of its own. ESPN's College GameDay looked at No. 2 Georgia hosting No. 24 Oklahoma and set up shop in Knoxville instead, for Texas at Tennessee. Yahoo Sports reported the reasoning: Oklahoma already lost at Michigan, and Georgia's a two-touchdown favorite, so the suspense wasn't up to code. The show is considered likely to catch Georgia at Alabama on October the tenth. Athens got snubbed for being too good at football, which is at least a novel complaint.

The town will manage. Georgia has announced a Stripe Sanford game for the Oklahoma visit: red across the north side, black across the south, white in the end zones, the whole stadium done up like the stripe on the silver britches. And DawgNation's recruiting podcast reports better than two dozen top prospects coming to see it, including three five-star defensive linemen — Kellan Hall, Asher Ghioto and Prince Che — plus the nation's No. 1 running back, Kemon Spell. The folks who matter are showing up. Television can catch the highlights like everybody else.

One last committee note. Our own machine here at the sports desk, fed 7,775 Georgia plays, can tell you what the Bulldogs will run next just 53.3 percent of the time. That is an honest number, and it means roughly this: nobody knows anything for certain — not the desk, not the television people, and not a conference room full of folks deciding whose schedule counts. Treat any man who claims otherwise like a fellow selling watches out of a coat.

The Notebook

• KIFFIN GOES HOME: Lane Kiffin took LSU back to Oxford for the first time and lost to his old team, 32-24, with Ole Miss's Trinidad Chambliss throwing for 363 yards and running in the winner. Kiffin allowed afterward that Ole Miss deserved it.
• ELSEWHERE IN THE LEAGUE: Unranked Kentucky beat No. 9 Texas A&M, 31-21, scoring 21 unanswered points in a third quarter it won 196 yards to 20. The Aggies fell to No. 23, the week's hardest tumble.
• LOCK OF THE WEEK: Notre Dame, laying 27 and a half at the Boilermaker Welders, Saturday at 2 Eastern. The desk calls it a lock, which is exactly what a man selling watches would say.

Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.

Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.