Georgia Bulldogs’ bye week is’very perilous’ for the remainder of NCAA football.
The undefeated Georgia Bulldogs have entered their first bye week of the 2024 season, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be taking it lightly.
According to former Georgia offensive line coach and current Arkansas head coach, Sam Pittman, bye weeks are Kirby Smart’s kryptonite and the rest of college football should be put on notice.
“It’s a time to get our kids healthy. It’s also a time to prepare for your opponents, a time to practice some of the kids that don’t get to play quite as much. But the bottom line is, I think Coach [Smart] does an outstanding job in all phases,” Pittman said on this week’s SEC media call. “It’s a time to recruit, but I think he does a wonderful job of understanding his personnel and his team and who to continue to put a little bit of wear and tear on and who not to. I think Coach Smart understands his team as good as anybody in America, and his players and the mentality they have.
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“I think therefore you give him another week to watch film on an opponent, and he’s very, very dangerous, and so I would imagine all those things put together is why he’s had so much success.”
Because of the calendar year, college football teams will have two bye weeks this season, which gives Smart even more time to correct his mistakes and get ahead of others.
Having a bye week this early in the season is certainly beneficial for Smart, but he says it feels different.
“It’s different. I don’t know if I call it weird, but it’s different,” Smart said. “I think the management of it’s critical. Because are all bye weeks the same? Are all by weeks created equal? We had to go back and look to the last time we had two in one season and how we used those and where they fall. Bye weeks serve different purposes. And I think ours fall at two very different distinct times. So, we will treat them very differently in terms of how we utilize them.”
The next time the Bulldogs have a bye week is Week 9 following their Week 8 road SEC match against Texas.
For now, this week’s “off” week it’s all about making improvements and adjustments following the outcomes of their first three contests.
“It’s always about improvement,” Smart said. “I mean, we’re better never rests, like we’re trying to get better all the time. So I’ve never had a bye week that I’ve ever had in all my years coaching that it wasn’t about improvement. It’s about detailing that improvement and how are you gonna attack it? Are you gonna do the same thing you’ve done every year?
“Well, you may not have the same team. You may not have the same special teams. You may have different needs from one year to the next, and we kind of cater our off week to what we need. And that’s not all based on Kentucky, that’s based on Tennessee Tech, that’s based on Clemson, that’s based on injuries, it’s based on improvement. We change the schedules each bye week to fit, to suit what we need.”
