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SEC Bowl Assignments
Thirteen Southeastern Conference football teams learned their postseason bowl destinations on Sunday, including No. 2-ranked Georgia who will play in the Allstate Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, a quarterfinal game in the new 12-team College Football Playoff format.
In other College Football Playoff games, No. 5 seed Texas will host Clemson in a first-round game and No. 7 seed Tennessee will play at Ohio State in a first-round game. Both games will be played on Dec. 21.
On Sunday, the College Football Playoff committee first named the 12 teams to participate in the playoff.
Next, the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl in Orlando selected South Carolina from the SEC to play Illinois of the Big Ten.
This marks the 11th year the Conference has assigned league schools to an “SEC Bowl Pool” that includes six postseason games. The SEC Bowl Pool includes the Kinder’s Texas Bowl in Houston, the TransPerfect Music City Bowl in Nashville, the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis, the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, the Reliaquest Bowl in Tampa and the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl. In alternating years, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl replaces the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl in the SEC Bowl Pool.
LSU will play in the Kinder’s Texas Bowl in Houston, Ole Miss will play in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Missouri will play in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl in Nashville, Arkansas will play in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, Alabama will play in the Reliaquest Bowl in Tampa and Texas A&M will play in the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl.
Following the SEC Bowl Pool, the Birmingham Bowl chose Vanderbilt, the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa selected Florida and the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth chose Oklahoma.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF GAMES
- CFP First Round Game – Clemson at Texas (Austin) – Dec. 21 – 4 pm ET – TNT and MAX
- CFP First Round Game – Tennessee at Ohio State (Columbus) – Dec. 21 – 8 pm ET – ESPN and ABC
- Allstate Sugar Bowl (New Orleans) – Georgia vs. Indiana/Notre Dame winner – Jan. 1 – 8:45 pm ET – ESPN
SEC-AFFILIATED BOWLS:
- Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl (Tampa) – Florida vs. American – Dec. 20 – 3:30 pm ET – ESPN
- Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl (Fort Worth) – Oklahoma vs. American – Dec. 27 – 12 pm ET – ESPN
- Birmingham Bowl (Birmingham) – Vanderbilt vs. ACC or Big 12 – Dec. 27 – 3:30 pm ET – ESPN
- AutoZone Liberty Bowl (Memphis) – Dec. 27 – Arkansas vs. Big 12 – 7 pm ET – ESPN
- SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl (Las Vegas) – Dec. 27 – Texas A&M vs. Current/Former Pac-12 – 10:30 pm – ESPN
- TransPerfect Music City Bowl (Nashville) – Missouri vs. Big Ten – Dec. 30 – 2:30 pm ET – ESPN
- Reliaquest Bowl (Tampa) – Alabama vs. Big Ten – Dec. 31 – Noon ET – ESPN
- Cheez-It Citrus Bowl (Orlando) – South Carolina vs. Illinois – Dec. 31 – 3 pm ET – ABC
- Kinder’s Texas Bowl (Houston) – LSU vs. Big 12 – Dec. 31 – 3:30 pm ET – ESPN
- TaxSlayer Gator Bowl (Jacksonville) – Ole Miss vs. ACC – Jan 2 – 7:30 pm ET – ESPN
The SEC Bowl Pool participants are determined after conversations with bowl partners and discussions with school personnel in order to create a lineup of compelling bowl games. This process, as approved by the institutions of the SEC, provides an opportunity to create intriguing matchups and varying assignments to help prevent repetitive postseason destinations when possible.
ICYMI: Video/Transcript – Kirby Smart’s Selections Day Interview – December 08, 2024
LELAND BARROW: Let’s start out with an opening statement, and then we’ll take questions. Coach [Kirby] Smart.
COACH SMART: Yeah, just finding out the news today of the CFP and the 12-team playoff. Obviously, we’ll be headed to New Orleans to play in the Sugar Bowl. We are super excited. We’ve got great connections down there, a lot of friends and guys we’ve met over the years of playing there in the Sugar Bowl.
So, we’re excited. And, obviously, we don’t know our opponent yet. But we’ve got a lot of time to work on ourselves and try to get better. And that’s the biggest thing right now, is what’s important now; and what’s important now is for us to keep trying to challenge ourselves and find ways to get better.
Q. I saw on the ESPN show, you mentioned not having an answer yet on Carson’s [Beck] situation. But given that you guys have essentially a month to get ready for the game, just how valuable will that be if, in fact, you guys have to turn to Gunner [Stockton]?
COACH SMART: Yeah, I certainly think there’s no good script, right, for losing a quarterback or having to go to your backup. There’s not a great script for it. It certainly wasn’t a great script last night to have to do it against the number one team in the country on defense. And having to do that at halftime was tough.
But this situation does give you time, if that’s what has to happen. There is time there. But experience is so valuable, and you can’t really get experience in this amount of time.
I wish he’d gotten more game experience up to this point in time. There’s not a lot we can do about that right now. So we’re just waiting to find out more information.
Q. You know now you’re in the Sugar Bowl. You mentioned on the show, talking about how so much of this is out of your control, and especially with the way things are seeded. But I guess if you could touch on that a little bit for us.
But mainly, you know you’re going to be in the Sugar Bowl, you know you’re playing on New Year’s Day in the Sugar Bowl. There’s a lot of tradition in Georgia football history when it comes to that game in particular. Can you just talk about that.
COACH SMART: Yeah, tremendous amount of history. I know — as a early child, one of the first games that I remember actually seeing and watching back in the early ’80s as a 5-, 6-year-old kid and Herschel Walker and the moments that happened in the Sugar Bowl. All the way through a lot of games that I’ve been a part of, whether it was Florida State-Georgia when I was a GA at Florida State; a lot of years at Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
I think my kids think their second home is the Sugar Bowl, because they spent a lot of time there. And they’re very spoiled when it comes to playing in an electric atmosphere, big matchups, big games. The SEC has been paired with the Sugar Bowl for a long time. It’s got a longstanding history, and Georgia does too.
Q. Kirby, you mentioned the Carson [Beck] update. Just wanted to ask about Brett Thorson as well. What update do you have on his status?
COACH SMART: Don’t have much. The MRI was done this morning along with Carson’s, and we’re awaiting results on both of those.
Q. Kirby, I was just following up on that because I knew you said it was going to be a few hours until you got the results. So is that going to later tonight, or you don’t really have any idea yet at all what Carson [Beck] is —
COACH SMART: Yeah, again, I don’t know, because I’m not following it. I’ve got a lot of other things going on. They’ll reach out to me once they do know something and get back to us.
Q. How is the mood of Carson [Beck]? Did you get to see him at all? How is he doing through all this?
COACH SMART: Yeah, he was at the team meeting. I think he had just gotten back from the MRI. He was pretty somber. Tough deal for him in terms of not being able to go out there and finish in the second half but is also excited for his teammates and happy that it ended the way it did. And ironically, he got to be on the field for that.
Q. Kirby, you mentioned you have a good amount of time before the next game. How much of your attention will be on the transfer portal as it relates to your own players and what plans they may have and what needs Georgia might have?
COACH SMART: Yeah, that’s all part of what we do. We’re recruiting ’26s right now. We’re evaluating tape. We’ve got guys to watch of — like, our future opponents, the teams we’ve got to watch. We’re always talking and dealing with our players, which will be time — that will move to the forefront, like right now, in terms of what we do.
But then we’ll start back practice, and we’ll continue to get better with the guys that want to be here.
And there’s not going to be a team in the country that doesn’t have somebody leave, probably somebody they don’t expect. But I almost feel like that’s become the norm, and it is what it is. We’re going to coach the ones that want to be here.
Q. Coach, just curious, your thoughts on these two teams. How much have you gotten to see them at all this year and just kind of the challenge they both pose?
COACH SMART: Yeah, Chris, I would be remiss if I even commented. I mean, other than knowing Curt Cignetti and Coach [Marcus] Freeman, having immense respect for both of them and the way they lead their programs. I was on staff with Curt and have competed against Marcus Freeman in his years there at Cincinnati. So I can’t say a lot about them. I really haven’t had a chance.
Q. Yeah, along those same lines, just what will the balance be like between looking ahead at those potential opponents versus working on yourselves? Whereas, in the past, you’ve known who you’re playing in this time off.
COACH SMART: Yeah, there won’t be a big difference in the balance. We commit 75-80% to ourselves and growth and development and trying to get our team ready and backups ready. We’re always going to be working at us. And then we’re going to spend time on our opponents. And it’s very similar to an off week for us where we work on two or three future opponents. We’ll continue to work on two future opponents in this case, not knowing the outcome of the game.
Q. Kirby, what can you tell us about [Charlie] Ham as a punter, in case Brett [Thorson] is not able to play with you guys? Obviously, Brett’s had a terrific career.
COACH SMART: Yeah, I hope his career continues. He’s got more time with us, and I still don’t know the outcome of it.
But when you reference Ham, you’re talking about the backup kicker?
Q. Who was the one who came in on the fake? Who was that?
COACH SMART: Drew [Miller]. So that’s the kid we signed last year. So, he would be our punter, and we think he’s really talented. He does a great job, and he’s worked really hard to get the opportunity. And he punts every day in practice and does a tremendous job. He’s a very highly recruited kid who we’ve got a lot of confidence in.
Q. Kirby, just one more Carson [Beck] question. Were you ever told exactly what he hurt? I think they said it might be hand, but looked like it might have been shoulder or arm. What can you tell us about that?
COACH SMART: Elbow area is what we understand it to be. I mean, at the time I didn’t know. Walking off the field, it looked like it could be shoulder. It looked like it could be wrist. It actually looked like the blow or the contact was to the wrist/forearm area, but the strain or pain was around the elbow.
Q. What is your schedule between now and the bowl game? Is it the same 15 before, or how do you work it out? Do you have the 20-hour limit? What is your practice schedule between now and the Sugar Bowl?
COACH SMART: It’s up to the coach. I mean, we have parameters that we use. I’ve got a model that I’ve used for years in terms of number of practices you want to get before you break for Christmas, the number of practices you want to get afterwards.
But there’s not school right now, so we’re not in a 20-hour week. We have flexibility there. They have to get a day off each week, which most coaches in their right mind give them more than one day off a week at this point in time. You tend to do every other day or you do some workouts.
I’ve got a plan of what we’re going to do. But as far as parameters, there’s not a lot of parameters. You can do about what you want to do, as long as you’re smart.
Q. Kirby, how much — when Gunner [Stockton] went in, how much was kind of changed on the fly? And how much can you — if you have to go to him over the next month, how much do you have to kind of tweak the offense?
COACH SMART: I think his strengths are somewhat different than Carson’s [Beck], obviously, but we’ve known that. There’s not a game that we don’t go into that we don’t have a plan for Gunner, if he were to have to play. I mean, when you’re backup quarterback, he’s got to be ready to play.
But he functions and operates really well within our current offense. We don’t think we have to change much in terms of that. He does give us the capability of doing some different things with his athleticism.
And I thought Mike [Bobo] and those guys did a good job using that. The team has a lot of confidence in Gunner. He’s very smart, very intelligent.
So, I don’t know that it’s a lot of change. It’s probably more picking the volume correctly in terms of not having everything that we have with Carson but having things that fit Gunner.
Q. Hey, Kirby. I wanted to ask you, I know you can’t speak specifically about Indiana, as you noted. But just as far as the story of what Curt Cignetti has done there this year, kind of what’s your take on that, just the way they’ve captured the imagination of the college football world?
COACH SMART: Yeah, it’s been really neat, really cool. I thought it was awesome to see some of their games on a national stage this year and their team transformed really the whole campus and energy around their program.
Curt has brought a lot of notoriety to Indiana. And it’s interesting because I’ve enjoyed watching it because I know Coach Cignetti. My years at Alabama, I was a really young coach and enjoyed being around him. And his personality is different. And I really like Coach Cignetti. I’ve followed him. Wherever he’s gone, he’s done really well.
Q. Kirby, if you’ve got to go with Gunner [Stockton] the rest of the way, where are [Ryan] Puglisi and Jaden Rashada in their development as potential backups?
COACH SMART: They’re both getting better, man. They’ve grown a lot since the start of the year until now. I think about all the reps they’ve taken. They’ve taken a lot of reps, and they get better and better and better. You know, I wish there were more game opportunities for them, and there just haven’t been a lot of game opportunities.
So, when they don’t get those game opportunities, we come in on Monday and we go scrimmage. We call it “opportunity period,” and we let Jaden, Ryan, all those guys go out and get reps, and they go and throw and compete and do third downs and do move the field and get reps against the defense. And that’s their growth because we’re not getting it in quality game time.
Q. Coach, so much happened in that game that we’re not able to visit this. But can you recap just sort of the conversations and decisions you were making on that last play that Carson [Beck] got hurt? I know that with the clock and everything else, do you try a long, long kick? What was the thinking there? And how did y’all end up deciding what you decided?
COACH SMART: The play before he got injured was the play that we wanted to set up a field goal. Most teams, including NFL teams, when you have a certain amount of time that you feel like you can burn a time-out, catch the ball, get down, if you remember that play, I think it was maybe a hard-count play and they jumped. And we know when they jumped that we’ve got a free play.
And the goal was to get in field-goal range, which we felt like was somewhere between the 35 and 40. Probably closer to the 35 would have been realistic to make a field-goal attempt.
And that’s the play that I think we threw the interception on, Carson threw the interception on. But there was a penalty, so we got five yards and we lost time.
And I think at the time that we decided to throw the Hail Mary, there was only three seconds maybe, or something, left. And at that point, we couldn’t throw an out, a quick gain. We didn’t have enough time.
So the opportunity there was to take a shot at the end zone, and that’s what we did. We actually did it the week before and needed to work on it. We worked on it this last week to try to get better at it.
It’s just unfortunate. They rushed four instead of three. And he’s got to locate the defender and know where the guys are coming from and try to avoid them. And at the end of the day, we’re good with a sack there. If we don’t get the ball off, it’s okay, just take a sack, because the last thing you want is a sack fumble, which almost happened.
Q. But you were out of [Peyton] Woodring’s range, you thought for sure?
COACH SMART: Absolutely out of his range. To win a game, we could attempt it. But we mark off every week and every venue we play in what you would try to win a game at versus what you would do at the end of the half. If you remember, we had that situation against Georgia Tech, and probably had too much wind on that one. We didn’t get a chance to get it to the end zone.
Q. Coach, I’m still — Gunner [Stockton] and how he landed the ball wrong, did he go into concussion protocol at all? If you did not score in overtime on that play, was he able to come back in?
COACH SMART: Yeah, he was fine to come back in.
Gunner, I don’t know exactly if he checked with the trainer. But when he came off the field, we were all talking to him about he could go back out. As long as he was cleared, he could return to play. He was conscious, fine, moving around, communicating.
I mean, most of the time they go into concussion protocol, it usually is a more severe targeting or there is an indicater for Ron [Courson] and his staff. And I don’t even know because I didn’t talk to him. I was talking to Carson [Beck] at the time, and it never came to fruition.
Q. Kirby, you’ve talked about how you have less depth pretty much almost everywhere than in past seasons. I wonder if you could tell us one or two or three spots or positions that you think that you might be looking to identify talent in the transfer portal?
COACH SMART: I don’t understand your question.
Q. Are there certain areas that you need to shore up when you evaluate your roster that you think you’d like to look in the portal to see if there’s someone that could help you?
COACH SMART: Yeah, all of them. All of them. There’s not a position that we don’t have enough depth at.
I mean, I repeatedly say we have less depth than we’ve ever had before. So we evaluate the transfer portal on who fits our culture more than we do who fits our talent level. There’s tons of talented guys out there. We just want to find people that want to fit our culture and really our ethic, because it’s not a place to go to if you’re just looking for sheer numbers. I mean, you’ve got to want to win and you’ve got to want to make sacrifices for the team here.
Q. We obviously saw Coach [Will] Muschamp on the sideline yesterday. Did he have any kind of added impact on the game, the defensive situation yesterday?
COACH SMART: He didn’t — I mean, he was there. Yeah, he did a great job for us. He was on the headphones. He felt like he needed to — because he had not been at a lot of games. He stayed kind of apart from things, but he still helps get information and helps us out during the game in terms of adjustments and things like that.
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