Few have experienced the particular genius of Georgia coach Kirby Smart more than Dell McGee.
The first-year Georgia State coach was one of two assistant coaches to serve on Smart’s coaching staff through his first eight seasons with the Bulldogs, defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann being the other. McGee was a trusted aide as UGA became the premier team in its sport, spurred by its detail- and process-driven leader.
The topic in a Monday phone interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was Smart’s ability to maintain a dominant program. To McGee, Smart’s management of coaches, players and the entire organization is such that Georgia’s success is built to last.
“The priority is always heightened every single year,” McGee said. “The barometer, the measurements or the standard goes up every single year because he’s always dissecting how things can be done better, what needs to be changed.”
It has resulted in the Bulldogs finishing tied for seventh or better in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll in each of the past seven seasons, winning the 2021 and 2022 national titles along the way. Smart’s capacity to keep Georgia at or very close to the top was particularly highlighted in its 34-3 demolition of Clemson in the Aflac Kickoff game Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
As it reaffirmed the No. 1 Bulldogs’ might, the game also was another marker in what appears to be the continued descent of the Tigers program from its lengthy residence atop the pyramid.
The contrast underscored the difficulty of staying on the slippery peak and the job that Smart has done in pulling it off. Smart has kept Georgia in the national-title picture even as the sport has experienced a series of radical changes, from shifts in how the game is played on the field, to the introduction of name, image and likeness deals and the transfer portal.
“It’s not even only adjustments,” McGee said. “It’s him having some futuristic thought in where the game is going and how can they stay up in front of the rules in every aspect – recruiting, NIL. I’m sure he has a plan for the (rule change capping rosters at 105 players) already. He’s just really, really innovative. He’s an extraordinarily sharp person.”
It wasn’t so long ago – no more than three years – that the game placed Clemson coach Dabo Swinney upon the same pedestal that it does Smart now. On Sept. 4, 2021, Clemson and Georgia faced off in Charlotte, North Carolina. Going into that season with a record six consecutive College Football Playoff appearances (two of them leading to national titles), Clemson was No. 3. Georgia was No. 5. The spotlight was on the Tigers’ Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback, D.J. Uiagalelei. Undoubtedly, the more accomplished program was Swinney’s.
Life has changed for the Tigers and Swinney since that game, a 10-3 Bulldogs win that launched their run to back-to-back national titles. There is little shame in what Swinney and Clemson have done over the past three-plus seasons – a 30-11 record and three Top 25 finishes – but the Tigers have won one ACC title in three seasons after claiming the previous six and have not been back to the CFP.
Swinney’s refusal to use the transfer portal has been an easy explanation for the downturn. But also he has not effectively filled the gaps created by the departures of coordinators Brent Venables (Oklahoma), Tony Elliott (Virginia) and Jeff Scott (South Florida). And the quarterbacking brilliance during the six-year CFP run from Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence has been followed by something much less from Uiagalelei (who has transferred twice since and has played a primary role in Florida State’s clunky 0-2 start this season) and Cade Klubnik.
Saturday’s blowout at MBS left little question about the relative standing between the two teams.
As the maxim goes, it’s much harder to stay at the top than to get there. As entrenched as Georgia seems to be in Smart’s ninth season, Clemson serves as evidence that the sun eventually sets on every dynasty.
“Much more difficult (to stay at the top than to get there),” former UGA athletic director Greg McGarity told the AJC on Monday by phone. “Oh, absolutely. Because I’ve seen programs that got there that all of the sudden aren’t there anymore. Because it’s so difficult to maintain, and that’s why Nick Saban was the best, for him to be able to do that.”
It is the ongoing quest for Smart – to be obsessively detailed with the day-to-day while also charting a course for the years to come. In other words, to avoid Clemson’s present fate.
To McGarity, who hired Smart from Alabama in December 2015, a Smart trait that has prolonged Georgia’s reign is one that melds with the flexibility that McGee valued.
“I don’t think he’s wavered,” said McGarity now president and CEO of the Gator Bowl. “I couldn’t say the last four years (since McGarity stepped down from the AD job), but (2016-20), you never saw him change his standards and his priorities. They were consistent.”
McGarity worked with a coach who was aware of every detail in the program, interacted with everyone down to the custodians and was not shy about making requests for facilities or staff, but only when he could make a case for the expense.
“I think that’s the one thing I admired most with him is, I don’t think in one request he ever said, ‘Well, so-and-so has this, so we have to have it,’” McGarity said. “It was, ‘This is what we need, and this is why we need it.’”
On Monday, at his news conference ahead of Saturday’s home game against Tennessee Tech, Smart said that “we have a way that we go about things” when making a large-scale decision.
“We talk about it. We visit with others,” he said. “We brainstorm. We do what any good business would do, and we try to make the best decision.”
And a little bit of fortune is required, too, not least at the quarterback position. Would Georgia have won two national titles with a different quarterback than Stetson Bennett, the most unlikely national-champion quarterback? And how well-positioned would Georgia be now if its quarterback were not Beck but Klubnik, who was recruited by the Bulldogs out of Austin, Texas?
And what if the quarterback to follow Beck next year doesn’t match the standard set by Smart’s most effective quarterbacks, Jake Fromm, Bennett and Beck?
But if he doesn’t, chances are Smart will have an answer.
“He knows everything that goes on,” McGarity said. “And when you’ve got somebody that is that intelligent and is that savvy, I just think that’s at the foundation of why he’s experienced so much success and still does.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
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