published on June 03, 2024 in gacor

Why Kirby Smart? The qualities, events that led to Georgias coach approaching greatness

ATLANTA — There was no epiphany. Kirby Smart did not just decide one moment to become a football coach. It was already in his DNA. His father was a high school coach, so when Kirby’s playing days ended, the Indianapolis Colts not seeing fit to keep him beyond a rookie preseason, the young Smart just slid to the most natural step.

“And if I didn’t like it, then I would do something else,” he said.

A few months into a gig as a Georgia student assistant, Smart got a call that launched his career, from a former Bulldogs teammate who had become the defensive coordinator at Valdosta State, a Division II program, and had always kept Smart in mind. As Will Muschamp remembered about the young Kirby Smart, “You saw the intelligence, you saw the work ethic, you saw as he continued to progress as a coordinator, you saw those things manifest into an outstanding football coach.”

Not just outstanding but on the verge of being, if he wins a second straight national championship — and maybe even if he doesn’t — one of the two or three best coaches in college football.

But why Kirby Smart? Why not Muschamp, who at one time was supposed to be the next big thing? Why not Mike Bobo or Chris Hatcher, two of Smart’s other close friends in the coaching business, who also had fathers who were high school coaches, who also got SEC jobs? What ultimately has separated Smart not just from his friends but nearly everyone else in the business?

Coaching is a unique industry. It’s not like spotting playing talent, where you can watch a recruiting camp or a pickup game and say: That player is the best. Coaches tend to look at each other and think they’re all good coaches, and success is a result of luck, timing and choices.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs need two more wins for their second straight national title. (Steve Limentani / ISI Photos / Getty Images)

Some of that is true for Smart. He has proved to be the right man at the right time to make Georgia a powerhouse. But why he was the right man goes deeper. Based on interviews with those who’ve followed Smart’s ascent and just having covered his time at Georgia, here are the qualities and reasons that have risen Smart to the pinnacle of his chosen profession.

Intelligence

Smart was an academic All-American at Georgia, a business major. Early in his Georgia tenure, he wowed boosters in private fundraising speeches, speaking on their level as he explained why they should fork over money for much-needed facilities.

“The guy could step out of coaching and take over a corporation and be a CEO and manage it the right way,” Muschamp said.

The fact he used those skills for coaching did not surprise Jim Donnan, who was Georgia’s coach during the latter part of Smart’s career. The safety was always someone who liked being involved in decisions on the field, which has played out as he went through the coaching ranks: He coached many of the defensive positions at Valdosta State. When Mark Richt hired him at Georgia to be running backs coach, it seemed odd, and yet it worked.

“Very few guys that I know in the 50-some years that I’ve been around it can coach every position,” said Donnan, who still lives in Athens and watches the program closely. “I mean usually a guy is a specialist as a secondary coach or a running back coach, you see that’s his forte. But this guy knows the fundamentals and assignments of every player on the field, including the specialists. That’s a unique talent. I mean, very few have that.”

Relentlessness

Former assistant coaches and staffers talk about getting texts and calls from Smart in the middle of the night. Smart is also known to spend time talking with lower-ranking staff members, gathering information and being meticulous in every detail. At Thursday’s practice, for instance, Smart was seen conferring with younger staffers, likely firming up plans for the end of practice and what comes next.

“The way he goes about everyday business at our university, what he demands from the coaches, all the details he requires us to know,” said Georgia running backs coach Dell McGee, who has been with Smart during his entire tenure as a head coach. “He doesn’t let small things slide, whether it’s disciplining our players, how we dress, just having everything in line in our organization working in the same direction — in all facets, whether it’s academics, weight training, nutrition. There’s just no stone unturned.”

The job of a head coach is as much CEO as it is anything else. They’re building a roster through recruiting and the transfer portal, they’re managing a large staff, acting as the public face of the program.

“His preparation, attention to detail, his anticipation skills, whether it’s roster management, staff management, scheme, recruiting, whatever the case may be, the guy does a really good job of managing those things,” Muschamp said.

And while working he’s demanding. He has rewarded assistants who recruited well with raises and has released or let assistants go who didn’t recruit well. And it’s not just the coaching staff. Smart often interviews quality control and lower-level staffers himself.

“He’s as close to being an authority on everything involved in the football program as you could be,” Donnan said. “He has a high standard that he wants met in every phase of the program, no matter what it might be.”

Charisma

Sometimes it doesn’t come across in public. Smart can be combative with the media, and on the sideline, he is often caught getting in his players’ faces. But the magnetic, positive side of him comes out through leaked locker room speeches and in-home recruiting visits. The latter speaks for itself, Smart often acting as the closer.

In the former, the halftime speech against Florida in 2021 is just an example: “Physically, I wanna break them! I’m talking about (expletive) physically breaking these (bad word) on offense and defense!”

But the man is also not a Neanderthal. His mother was an English teacher, and her son quotes Henry David Thoreau in speeches at SEC media days.

One of the little-noticed staples of Smart’s program has been the mental, almost spiritual side. He was a devotee and good friend of sports psychologist Trevor Moawad, who died of cancer last year. Smart regularly invites speakers who talk about things besides football. During and after the COVID-19-marred 2020 season, Georgia instituted what it called “skull sessions,” where players and coaches stood up to tell the room about their “why,” as in why they play football, why they live their life, what drives them. He’s also pulled back a bit on his staff.

“You see a lot of growth and transition from Year 1 to Year 7,” McGee said. “He’s adapted and changed. The structure of practice, even with the coaches, allowing us to have time to ourselves to kind of re-center and refocus. What he didn’t like as an assistant and things he didn’t feel were necessary.”

Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs opened their 2022 season with a rout of Oregon. (Brett Davis / USA Today)

Pragmatism

Smart didn’t learn under just Nick Saban, known for his seemingly cutthroat ways. Smart also worked for Bobby Bowden as a graduate assistant in 2002 and for Richt (another former Bowden assistant) in 2005. In many ways, and in how Smart runs his program, he mostly resembles Saban. But there are sprinkles of Bowden and Richt, as well as Hatcher and Donnan.

And to be fair to Saban, there’s one side of him that doesn’t get enough attention: He’s not so arrogant that he thinks he knows everything. Saban is always looking for an edge because he knows what he doesn’t know, which is why he kept hiring big-name coaches as analysts and expanded the staff in general. Saban doesn’t let his ego get in the way of improving his program. Smart saw that side of Saban and brought it with him to Athens.

“He’s a guy who’s always self-reflective,” Donnan said. “He’s always looking at ways to do things better. He knew the model that he wanted to put here, which had the success, that Bama footprint. But he also knew what needed to be done (at Georgia), when you look at the facility enhancement, recruiting more on a national scale. Whatever it might be, he’s up with it.”

That included modernizing the Georgia offense. After the 2019 season, when things had gotten stagnant, Smart went to Todd Monken, who had an Air Raid background, and convinced him that he was ready to change and would not interfere.

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“He wanted to change the perception of Georgia’s offense,” Monken said. “It’s been everything he said it would be when he hired me. He said, ‘I’ll let you do what you want to do. Yeah, I’m the head coach and there’s certain things I believe in, but I want someone who can come in and run it and I don’t have to worry about it.'”

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Tendency to be a defensive genius

This part can be brief but needs to be mentioned: Smart knows what he’s doing on defense. That showed when he was in charge of Alabama’s defense, and it has shown at Georgia. Schematically, his teams usually seem to have the right idea, but knowing what to do and having 18- to 22-year-olds execute it are two different things.

Smart’s ability to relate to players and explain the game plan to them is what many outsiders have marveled at. SEC Network analyst Matt Stinchcomb once sat in on a Smart session at Alabama and was blown away by how Smart got his players to understand the often complicated concepts.

Smart was clearly not the secret sauce for Alabama’s success under Saban, who has won two more national championships since his protege left. But it bears noting that Alabama’s defense is a lot more inconsistent these days, while Georgia’s is on a four-year run of being among the nation’s best.

Circumstance and timing

All these winning Smart qualities might be on display somewhere else if not for a series of key career crossroads.

Latching on to Saban was a case of one key connection. Muschamp was hired at Valdosta State in 2000 and invited Smart for an interview. Muschamp joined the LSU staff and suggested Smart to Saban before the 2004 season.

Then, of course, there was Smart’s good luck or patience in waiting for the right job to come along, and it ended up being his alma mater after the 2015 season. The world will never know what Smart would have done as the head coach at South Carolina — which likely would have happened if Georgia didn’t fire Richt — or at any other program where the 40-year-old Smart took over as a first-time head coach. We just know how he has done at the program he knew best, where he knew the names of lower-level staffers, knew the state of the facilities and knew the names of high school coaches and other key connections. And where his wife also went to school.

“Kirby Smart is a Georgia alum. That’s a big, big piece,” Monken said. “His heart is here. This is his home.”

Muschamp, speaking about his friend and boss Thursday, outlined why he thinks Smart got to this point.

“The coaching profession is no different than the business world. You make the most of the opportunities that you have,” Muschamp said. “And certainly, he has made the most of the opportunities he’s had, whether it’s at Valdosta State, whether it’s being at Florida State and being a GA, making those connections there with that staff. Having that opportunity when I was defensive coordinator at LSU, to come to LSU and do a fantastic job with us. To have the opportunity to come back and work for coach Richt as a running backs coach. … He’s worked with a lot of guys.

“It’s about making the most of the other opportunities he has, and he has done that at every stop as an assistant coach and a head coach.”

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Andy Lyons, Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)

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