Kirby Smart dethroned for the best quote of the college football season

While Kirby Smart's spot as one of college football's best coaches remains secure, he just got bested by Syracuse coach Fran Brown for the line of the year. Smart's contributions to college football discussioni in 2025 is still top-flight. But Brown not only dropped the line of this year, but perhaps the line of many years to win the top one-liner of 2025.

Kirby Smart's Two Blasts

First, a reminder of the ground that Brown had to surpass. Smart dropped a pair of outright blasts in recent weeks. Smart has been rather explicit about the modern college football world. In a press conference after Georgia's win over Texas, Smart said, "We build our core culture around being the more physical team. A lof of these kids want a check. They don't want physicality."

On the Monday following that Texas game, Smart dropped a great line about players who choose to leave his program. "We schedule them," he admitted. "The ones that want to leave, we schedule them. We try to get them on the schedule, because when they want to leave, because they're not physical, that means they're probably going to a place that's not physical." After discussing the topic in more depth, Smart noted,, "You run from hard in life, you'll find more hard."

But Brown did him one better. In a postseason press conference, Brown was asked about the transfer portal versus the recruiting class he is signing and he dropped some truth bombs on the topic.

Fran Brown's Line of the Year

All we're doing is swapping twos [second-string players]... Everybody's twos are upset, so they all want to leave, because they're twos. So guys are just swapping twos right now, swapping different ones. For me, I'm not trying to swap spit. I'm going to stick with my guys and develop our guys.
Fran Brown

Syracuse has signed 26 new players, most notably five-star wide receiver Calvin Russell from Miami. Brown had a difficult 2025 season, sliding to 3-9 in his second year at Syracuse after piling up a 10-3 record and a top 25 finish in his first year.

Transfer Portal vs. Freshmen

Many schools have gone opposed Brown's logic and gone light in the recruiting wars, choosing to focus attention instead on the transfer portal. LSU coach Lane Kiffin was a master of the portal at Ole Miss and there's little reason to think he won't follow some of the same plan at LSU. On the other hand, Clemson's Dabo Swiney has been notable reticient about diving into the transfer portal. Clemson signed 20 players in the early signing period, while LSU inked just 15.

Still, whatever the process of adding players, nobody described it quite as clearly as Coach Brown. He may have only won three games in 2025, but he still is the leader in the clubhouse for college football quote of the year.