ATHENS -- It’s Nick vs. Kirby, Part VI.
Oh, Alabama coach Nick Saban and Georgia coach Kirby Smart will tell you it’s not. They’ll say it’s all about the schools and the players. But the mentor vs. protégé narrative will be prominent again this week as the coaches prepare go head-to-head for the sixth time in five years and for the fourth time with a championship on the line.
Smart and the Bulldogs have won just one of those meetings and it was a big one. Georgia prevailed against Saban and the Crimson Tide 33-18 in the 2021 College Football Playoff Championship on Jan. 10, 2022, in Indianapolis.
Saban’s teams have won the other four meetings. In fact, including his matchup against Georgia coach Mark Richt in the 2012 SEC Championship, Saban has never lost a conference title game to the Bulldogs.
“Well, they beat us in the national championship game the last time we played. So, I don’t know that one game is more important than any other,” Saban said during a teleconference call with reporters Sunday night ahead of Saturday’s SEC Championship game. “Obviously, whoever plays the best in this game will have the best chance to win. And, you know, I have a lot of respect for Kirby and we don’t jostle about winning and losing or dog each other about it.”
Mutual respect, more than anything else, stands out on these occasions when Smart and Saban get to match wits in football. Their histories are tightly intertwined. Saban gave Smart his first major break in the coaching business by hiring him as a defensive backs coach at LSU in 2004.
After Smart had a one-year stint as Georgia’s running backs coach in 2005, Saban hired him away again to join him with the Miami Dolphins. Then, when Alabama lured Saban away from the NFL, he brought Smart with him to Tuscaloosa and made him one of the youngest assistant head coaches in the country at 31 years old.
Clearly, Saban saw something special in the towheaded former Georgia safety from Bainbridge.
“I knew he’d be an outstanding head coach some day, but it’s phenomenal what he’s been able to accomplish at Georgia,” Saban said Sunday. “I mean, to win as many games in a row as he has and to win a couple of championships and have another chance to do it a third time, that’s phenomenal. What is it in a row, 29 or whatever it is? I mean, we won 19 in a row twice here and I know how hard that was. It’s hard to sustain. So, he’s done a phenomenal job.”
There’s no denying that. The Bulldogs’ 29 wins in a row moved Smart ahead of two Alabama coaches who had won 28 straight in two different eras – Bear Bryant (1978-80) and Gene Stallings (1991-93). In the midst of that run, Georgia won the 2021 and ‘22 national championships and the 2022 SEC Championship.
However, Smart has not been able to beat a Saban-coached Alabama team in the building in which they will play Saturday after at 4 p.m. (CBS). The Bulldogs are 0-3 versus the Crimson Tide in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Surely Smart is motivated to make a market correction on that.
“Not really,” he said Sunday night. “The motivation for me is for our players and to get better throughout the year. I don’t look at it as who we play. We don’t control who goes into the game. We had a chance to beat LSU; we didn’t. Then we had another chance to beat LSU and we did. We had a chance to beat Auburn and we did. We’ve had a chance to beat Alabama and we haven’t.
“When you’re playing in this game, you’re playing a really good team. So it’s not an extra-motivating factor for me. I’m not looking to check boxes or get certain marks on my belt. That’s not what I got in this for.”
Georgia (12-0, 8-0 SEC) arrives with a consensus No. 1 ranking and coming off its third consecutive undefeated regular season. The Bulldogs had to fight and claw for their latest victory, needing to recover an onside kick attempt to edge a 6-6 Georgia Tech team 31-23 late Saturday night at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Alabama can relate. The No. 8-ranked Crimson Tide (11-1, 8-0) needed quarterback Jalen Milroe to throw a 31-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-goal with 32 seconds remaining to edge 6-6 Auburn 27-24 at Jordan-Hare Stadium earlier in the day on Saturday.
The hair-raising victory was mindful of an almost-desperate tone with which Alabama has had to play ever since losing to Texas in Week 2 in Tuscaloosa. The Crimson Tide followed that with surprisingly difficult 17-3 win over South Florida in Week 3 and since has survived close calls against Texas A&M (26-20), Arkansas (24-21) and LSU (42-28).
Again, Georgia can relate.
The Bulldogs have been in a season-long quest not only to remain perfect but to become the first three-time football national champion in modern history. The crazy thing about it is they may need to remain undefeated through the conference championship just to have that chance. A loss to a lower-ranked Alabama team could potentially do in the Dogs.
“None of all that matters as much to me as an SEC Championship,” said Smart, who has won two in his previous seven seasons as the Bulldogs’ coach. “I think that gets lost on everybody. Nobody cares. All they want to know is who’s the champion of the NCAA and not who’s the conference champion. Maybe that’s been lessened in value to the outside world, but it hasn’t been lessened to the coaching world or to the men in our locker room.”
Smart’s success at Georgia has given birth to another intriguing argument regarding him and Saban. Was it Saban’s influence on Smart that has led to the Bulldogs’ incredible success or was it Smart who was lifting Alabama’s program all along as Saban’s right-hand man from 2007-15?
“I don’t see what they do every day at practice,” Saban said of Smart being a copy cat. “I do see the product they have on the field and their players are well-coached and they play good discipline, their focused on doing their job, they do it the right way. So, I assume that all those things are sort of coached into them.”
Smart does not deny embracing the principles and concepts of Saban’s “process” and implementing them at UGA. He’d be a fool not to emulate such a coaching icon.
He was asked Sunday what were his greatest coaching takeaways from his 19-year relationship with Saban.
“His attention to detail and ability to be locked into the task at hand,” Smart said. “Never before has this level of college football required such multitasking. One minute you’re working on special teams. The next thing, you’re chasing guys, dealing with the portal or transfers or NIL. So, his ability to compartmentalize and work on the task at hand was always incredible to me and something that I try to do. I don’t know that I do it as well as he does.”
Perhaps, but they both seem to be doing quite well.
Saban vs. Smart
Jan. 8, 2018 CFP Championship Atlanta Alabama 26-23 (OT)
Dec. 1, 2018 SEC Championship Atlanta Alabama 35-28
Oct. 17, 2020 Regular season Tuscaloosa Alabama 41-24
Dec. 4, 2021 SEC Championship Atlanta Alabama 41-24
Jan. 10, 2022 CFP Championship Indianapolis Georgia 33-18
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