Kirby Smart made sure to let everyone know Saturday that he kept the receipts after Georgia defeated Florida in one of college football’s biggest annual rivalry games.
Speaking to reporters after Georgia’s 43-20 win, Smart threw some shade at Florida’s former head coach, Dan Mullen, who is a current ESPN analyst.
When discussing the matchup earlier in the day on the halftime show of the South Carolina-Texas A&M clash, Mullen said, “Florida does win the game.”
Going even further, the ex-Gators coach said he didn’t think the Bulldogs should be in the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings.
All of that had gotten back to Smart, apparently, and after Georgia convincingly defeated Florida, he made sure to get his dig in.
“Somebody texted me before the game, it’s like all these people predicting that we’re not going to win today,” Smart told reporters. “I’m just like, golly, where is that coming from? You’re supposed to be my friend. He didn’t like to recruit though, so it gets him.”
Mullen coached the Gators for four seasons before he was fired in 2021.
During that time, he beat the Bulldogs just once in 2020.
Smart’s dig appears to stem from comments Mullen made in November 2021 during a terse exchange with reporters after the Gators had lost to the Bulldogs that season.
The question revolved around the talent gap between the two programs at the time, and Smart had discussed the importance of recruiting.
Upon being pressed about it again later in the same press conference, Mullen’s response became curt.
“We’re in the season right now,” Mullen said in 2021, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. “We’ll do recruiting after the season. When it gets to recruiting time, we can talk about recruiting. Next question.”
Mullen later tried to clarify the comments and was fired during the 2021 season.
Smart is clearly not one to forget things, and he might make Mullen think twice about picking against Georgia again.
