JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Kirby Smart settled into his seat for his postgame press conference in EverBank Stadium Saturday night and sounded a little bit like his No. 2 Georgia football team just lost.

“Ooh, that was a tough one guys,” Smart said. “We didn’t play our best game.”

Georgia had just put away Florida 34-20 with a pair of touchdowns in the final 4:01 to go to 7-1.

And lookie, now. Georgia is tied for first place in the SEC with Texas AM at 5-1 after South Carolina’s 44-20 takedown of the Aggies Saturday night. Tennessee at 4-1 and LSU and Texas at 3-1 follow. The top two teams in the now division-less SEC will play in the conference championship game with the winner getting a first-round playoff bye.

Georgia has enough on its plate what with cleaning up from its win over the Gators—first and foremost the turnovers after three more Carson Beck interceptions—and a big test Saturday at No. 18 Ole Miss.

All that College Football Playoff talk this week with the first rankings coming out Tuesday night will be viewed as just outside noise inside the program.

Playoffs? Playoffs?!

Smart didn’t quite turn into Jim Mora Sr. when the subject came up on his radio show before the Florida game.

It offered a window into his public stance on all the talk about the 12-team playoff.

“Everybody wants to talk about it,” Smart said. “Everybody wants to say this and that. You got to do this, you got to do that? Look, man, you’ve got to take care of business that week.”

Smart should write a thank you card to quarterback Jaxson Dart.

Ole Miss's offense came to life Saturday after mostly underwhelming during SEC play. Dart threw for 515 yards and 6 touchdowns on 25 of 31 passing in a 63-31 rout of Arkansas.

The Rebels will go up against a Georgia team coming off a second straight game with Beck throwing three interceptions. It was a comedown type of game for the Bulldogs after the win at No. 1 Texas two weeks earlier, but Georgia is still in good shape to make the playoff.

“We really didn’t get stopped unless I, you know, turned the ball over,” Beck said. “It’s a good thing for our offense and a bad thing for me.”

Georgia did have 5 pass plays of 21 or more yards including 25 and 34 yards to Arian Smith.

Smart said Georgia needs to prevent the interceptions, but also won the game because it can wing it.

“I mean, we're not going to not throw it,” Smart said. “Like, he throws the ball well. We think that we've got a really good pass game, we got a great pass pro, we got good wideouts, and we got a really good quarterback. “

Georgia’s defense held Florida to 228 yards, the lowest by an SEC team against the Bulldogs since Vanderbilt’s 219 on Oct. 14, 2023.

Granted, the Gators were down to a third-string quarterback after DJ Lagway left the game with a hamstring injury in the second quarter.

Georgia was down not only two starters in the secondary in the first half for targeting but JaCorey Thomas, forced into the starting lineup, left the game for a span injured during the first half and Georgia turned to Kyren Jones.

In addition, return man Anthony Evans was out with a hamstring injury. Malaki Starks handled punt returns and Cash Jones kickoff returns.

Georgia could use all the healthy bodies it can get.

It will play its fourth game this season against a top 20 opponent in Oxford with a fifth the week after with Tennessee.

“We’ve got another big game next week and then another big game after that and another big after that,” Beck said. “That’s why you come to Georgia.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: CFP rankings coming, but Georgia has much to clean up and Ole Miss test