Lincoln Riley, who made the College Football Playoff three straight years from 2017 through 2019 and won four straight Big 12 championships, has fallen from the mountaintop as a college football coach at USC. He had one good 2022 season and has then cratered in 2023 and 2024. Riley’s downfall at USC has been pronounced. If he can’t rescue himself in 2025 with a big season, he could be gone before 2026. Riley is the most shocking coaching story of the decade, in terms of a successful coach suddenly losing his fastball. That said, he isn’t the only coach who has gotten noticeably worse in recent years. Kirby Smart has to be included in this conversation after Georgia’s ugly 23-10 loss to Notre Dame and the improving Marcus Freeman in the Sugar Bowl on Thursday, deepening the SEC’s playoff problems.
Some people will say that Kirby just didn’t have the horses. Gunner Stockton was not ready to win the game. Georgia just wasn’t that good a team this season. Georgia’s offensive line got chewed up, and the left tackle simply could not protect Stockton in this game. Also, an inactive Georgia player, Parker Jones, got carried away and bumped an official on the sideline for a crucial 15-yard penalty which deprived Georgia of a red-zone 1st and 10. Many things happened in the Sugar Bowl which cannot be laid at Kirby Smart’s feet. That’s true. However, Smart still coached a terrible game.
We’re going to look at Kirby Smart and the other non-Lincoln Riley coaches who might not be as good as we think they are anymore.
KIRBY SMART HUGE FAILURE VERSUS NOTRE DAME
Was the Sugar Bowl simply a case of Georgia not being good? Maybe to a point, and certainly on the offensive line. However, Kirby Smart obviously should have seen that his offensive line was not ready to hold up against Notre Dame’s pass rush. He and offensive coordinator Mike Bobo should have had a max-protect scheme to help Gunner Stockton. More specifically, Georgia should have been protecting Stockton’s backside. It’s always harder for a relatively inexperienced quarterback to feel backside pressure than pressure up the middle or to his wide side, where he can easily see an oncoming pass rusher. The fumble Stockton committed just before halftime — the biggest single play of the game — was due to a backside hit and strip. The Georgia running back did not stay in to chip and help on the Notre Dame edge rush. That’s coaching 101. It should have been an easy solution to an obvious problem, but Kirby Smart was asleep at the switch.
AMPLE TIME TO PREPARE
Kirby Smart had over three weeks to prepare for this game. He had a chance to watch Notre Dame against Indiana, in which the Fighting Irish defense dominated the whole game. Knowing his quarterback was inexperienced, Smart had every chance to make sure his quarterback was given the best possible chance to succeed. Smart failed Gunner Stockton. It is a coaching failure which cannot be overstated.
GUNNER STOCKTON WAS NOT BAD
Gunner Stockton threw for 225 yards in this game. He threw an accurate ball and made generally sound decisions. Georgia moved the ball and had more yards than Notre Dame. Stockton was not the problem, which magnifies how much the coaching staff failed to help him out. Kirby Smart really blew this game.
FUNDAMENTALS WERE LACKING FOR GEORGIA
Stockton was an improvement over Carson Beck. Georgia committed tons of turnovers in 2024, with Beck being an interception machine. Georgia also suffered from dropped passes throughout the season. In the Sugar Bowl, multiple fumbles doomed the Dawgs. This team never really solved the fundamentals problem on offense. Kirby Smart did not create discipline on that side of the ball.
NEW ERA OF NIL AND THE TRANSFER PORTAL
In the new era of NIL and the transfer portal — and the 12-team College Football Playoff — it’s quite noticeable that the SEC’s dominance has evaporated. NIL and the portal are leveling the playing field instead of making the rich even richer. The SEC came very close to being shut out of the semifinals, and Texas got in with a lot of luck against Arizona State. Nick Saban remained the gold standard to the very end of his career. Saban never really fell off the cliff. Kalen DeBoer’s 2024 season was worse than any Saban season at Alabama except for Saban’s maiden voyage in 2007. We could be seeing the erosion of Kirby Smart’s competitive advantage as a college football coach. It will be very, very interesting to see if Kirby does regain his fastball at Georgia, or if 2024 — three losses and a lot of ugly games — becomes the new normal for the Dawgs in Athens.
DABO SWINNEY
Dabo Swinney, like Kirby Smart, will one day be enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame as a head coach. Both men have won multiple national championships. They were undeniably great coaches in their primes. Dabo, however, lost his fastball at Clemson and is trying to get it back. Are we seeing the same erosion with Kirby Smart? It’s possible. We won’t say it’s likely, but it could be that Kirby’s flaws as a head coach are more exposed since rosters are being balanced out by NIL and the portal. When the talent advantage is not as pronounced, Smart isn’t winning as much. Makes ya think.
KALEN DEBOER
Kalen DeBoer was phenomenal at Washington in 2022 and 2023. In 2024 at Alabama, he was a mess. Was it as simple as DeBoer not being able to adjust his system to Jalen Milroe’s strengths, or was it a case of DeBoer having a unique understanding of Michael Penix which he lacked with Milroe? At any rate, DeBoer is very much on the hot seat at Alabama, because a second season just like this past 2024 season will not be tolerated in Tuscaloosa.
BACK TO LINCOLN RILEY
Life has changed quickly and drastically for Lincoln Riley and other coaches who have been hugely successful over the past several years but have watched their programs take significant hits in the past 12 to 24 months. The job description for a coach — doing the things a head coach has to do in order to succeed — has changed quite a lot over the past two to three years. It’s a different set of challenges and a different set of imperatives. Riley has been the very worst high-profile coach in terms of keeping pace with college football’s changes, but as the Sugar Bowl and Clemson’s decline have showed us, Kirby Smart and Dabo Swinney are also struggling to maintain a high standard. USC is the foremost example of a program whose coach is not adjusting to the times, but the Trojans are not alone. Other college football coaches aren’t what they once were, too.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Lincoln Riley isn’t the only coach to get worse the past two seasons
