Snubbed in Atlanta: GameDay passed, Kirby shrugged, Florida noticed

Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media.

I am not a detective. I read college football press conference transcripts for a living, which is a worse job and, this week, nearly the same one.

Because something about this Florida-Georgia week does not add up, and it is not the point spread.

Begin with the smallest mystery. ESPN's College GameDay is a show that travels the country looking for the biggest game in America, and this week it found one in Bloomington, Indiana, where the Hoosiers will host Minnesota. Minnesota is 5-2. The Gophers are a perfectly respectable football team, the kind you are happy to see on your schedule in November, preferably at noon, preferably already over. Indiana is the defending national champion and ranked No. 4, so the show is not crazy. It is just not at our game, and our game is Florida and Georgia, in Atlanta, for the first time in the modern history of the rivalry.

Even the Indianapolis Star seemed a little embarrassed. The paper ran a headline asking why GameDay was coming to Bloomington for that game, and its story listed the other Halloween matchups people had nominated instead. Georgia and Florida were near the top of the list. That is the host city's newspaper, folks. When the people receiving the honor are confused by the honor, the rest of us are allowed to stop wondering whether we imagined the snub.

Georgia, for the record, has already been on the show this year. GameDay went to Tuscaloosa for Georgia and Alabama in Week 6. The Bulldogs have had their close-up. It was the rivalry itself, a hundred years old and temporarily homeless, that got left at the curb in a nice suit. The SEC's own pregame show will be in Atlanta on Saturday morning, Tim Tebow and all. The big one will be at a fountain in Bloomington.

Which brings us to the main witness. Kirby Smart met the media on Monday, and I have now read his remarks three times. This tells you nothing good about my social life and a great deal about his adjectives.

Kirby was warm about nearly everyone. Jon Sumrall has brought energy and physicality to Florida. The coordinators have his respect. Buster Faulkner, once an assistant on Kirby's own staff, was introduced like family at a reunion: one of the best offensive minds in the country, a close friend, respect upon respect. If compliments were currency, Buster could retire.

Then Kirby arrived at Florida's quarterbacks, and a man has to know what he heard. What he heard was "completely capable." Aaron Philo is completely capable. Tramell Jones Jr. is completely capable. Kirby said it twice, carefully, the way you describe a rental car. It has four wheels. It runs. It is completely capable of reaching the airport.

Oh, and just one more thing. In Buster's offense, Kirby explained, "it doesn't require the quarterback to be perfect."

There it is. Everything else in that press conference was a man being gracious. That sentence was a man being accurate about what he actually thinks. He respects the machine. The two young men operating it, the ones who beat Ole Miss and Texas, are simply the help. Kirby even recited their accomplishments himself, both wins, out loud, and then handed them the same word you would use for a hotel shower with decent water pressure.

I do not blame him for saying it. I would just like it printed somewhere large, preferably where a Florida locker room can see it all week.

Kirby had one more opinion worth writing down, this one about the game leaving Jacksonville for a year and landing in Atlanta, about 70 miles from his campus. He does not think the venue matters much to the teams, he said. For the fans, the game in the 'Benz will probably be a unique experience.

Isn't that generous. A unique experience. The neutral site in this rivalry just moved into Georgia's state capital, into a dome my dad figures will split something like 60-40 for the Bulldogs, and the head coach of the Bulldogs has studied the situation and concluded that geography is a non-issue. I believe he believes that. If my commute to the biggest game of my season were an hour, I would find geography pretty uninteresting myself.

Jacksonville, for all its humidity and questionable stadium food, had one virtue that can never be replaced. Georgia did not own it. Nobody owned it. That was the entire arrangement, and it survived for the better part of a century because both sides understood the value of a room neither family controlled. This year the room has an Atlanta address and a corporate name, and half the sport has decided not to notice.

So, to summarize the evidence. The national stage went to Indiana. The opposing coach praised our play-caller like a brother and our quarterbacks like appliances. The neutral site leans red, the polls have Florida at No. 17 in one and No. 20 in the other, and the oddsmakers have Georgia by double digits.

One final detail, and then I will let everyone go. Kirby Smart has lost back-to-back regular-season games exactly twice in 11 seasons at Georgia, both times in his first season, 2016. The last time it happened, the order went like this: a loss, a bye week, and then a 24-10 loss to Florida.

Georgia's last game was a 27-24 loss at home to Auburn. Auburn's quarterback ran for 115 yards on that defense, and Florida, earlier this season, scored 44 on Auburn. Georgia has since had its bye week. I am not saying history repeats itself. Detectives deal in facts, and the fact is simply that the pattern is sitting there on the table where anybody can look at it.

Florida comes in healthier than it has been in a month, with Vernell Brown III back, Jadan Baugh to lean on and a defense that already won once this month in a stadium where it was not wanted. Sumrall still will not name his quarterback, which means Georgia's staff gets to spend the week preparing for two capable young men and one uncomfortable sentence from their own head coach.

We are one sovereign Gator Nation. See you in Atlanta, where the venue does not matter, the quarterbacks are capable and absolutely nothing suspicious is going on.

Florida and Georgia kick off at 3:30 p.m. EDT Saturday on ABC at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.