Kirby Smart Makes Definitive Statement on Bowl Opt-Outs After Blowout Win in Orange Bowl

Following No. 6 Georgia’s 63–3 drubbing of short-handed No. 5 Florida State in Saturday’s Orange Bowl, Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart made a strong statement on the current bowl landscape and the issues regarding opt-outs of key players across the sport.

“People need to look at what happened tonight, and they need to fix this,” Smart began. “Everybody is saying we had our guys, [Florida State] didn’t have their guys. I can listen to all that, but college football has gotta decide what they want. And I know things are changing, and how things are gonna change next year. But you know what? There’s still going to be bowl games outside of [the playoff]. People need to decide what they want and what they wanna get out of it. It’s really unfortunate for those kids on that sideline that had to play in that game that didn’t have their full arsenal. It affected the game, 100%.”      

Florida State played without several key players on Saturday, including quarterback Jordan Travis, who is out for the season with a broken leg, and wide receivers Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson, among others, who elected to opt-out of the game following the College Football Playoff snub.

In total, the Seminoles only had 53 scholarship players dressed on Saturday, with several of those players having never played a snap of college football. Georgia, meanwhile, had most of their regulars suited up and it showed.

The end result? Georgia racked up 673 yards of offense to Florida State’s 209, had 36 first downs to Florida State’s 11, and rushed for 372 yards to Florida State’s 63.

Neither team reached their goal of winning a national championship in 2023, but collectively made a statement in Saturday’s Orange Bowl that the current bowl system is broken.