Nick Saban sat on the college football throne for years. Is Kirby Smart ready for the crown?

ATHENS, Ga. — The fans walking into a Georgia baseball game on an April afternoon cannot look in on the football practice taking place across from the stadium. But there is no escaping the booming, amplified voice radiating over Rutherford Street.

“Take his f—ing job!”

“His ass wants to quit!”

“Do it again! Get it right!”

Kirby Smart roams the practice field holding a microphone, peppering his players with … feedback between each rep. Several dozen visitors, including donors, high school coaches and recruits, are treated to a colorful two-hour soundtrack of Smart’s gravelly South Georgia accent.

Nick Saban had his straw hat. Jim Harbaugh, his baseball cap and khakis.

Smart has his microphone.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning was an assistant under Smart from 2018-21. He said a respondent in an anonymous team survey one year he was there suggested Smart ditch the microphone. So he did — for one day.

“The next day he came back out with the microphone (and) ripped into some coaches’ asses, some players as well,” Lanning said. “Nobody’s safe when the microphone is out.”

Smart, a former Georgia defensive back, was Alabama’s defensive coordinator under Saban for four national championships before landing the head-coaching job at his alma mater in 2015. He succeeded Mark Richt, who won 74 percent of his games in 15 seasons but never played for a national championship. Smart, 48, has won two national championships — the school’s first since 1980 — and played for a third. He has won 86 percent of his SEC games, including 42 consecutive regular-season games.

With Saban’s retirement and Harbaugh’s return to the NFL after last season, Smart should, in theory, be the face of the sport.

“There’s a pretty good chance he’ll go down as one of the greatest coaches ever,” said Richt, now an ACC Network analyst. “He’s young, he’s got time, he’s got the resources and the talent base in the state of Georgia. He’s got a lot going for him.”

But there’s one aspect of Smart’s program that clouds his myriad successes.

Since a January 2023 street-racing crash that killed recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy and player Devin Willock, 10 Georgia players and one staff member have been arrested for driving-related incidents. That includes starting running back Trevor Etienne, suspended for this year’s season opener following a March DUI arrest, and cornerback Daniel Harris, who was held out of Georgia’s last game after being arrested for driving 106 mph.

“Instead of the narrative of Kirby Smart has taken over as the best coach in the country now that Saban’s gone, he’s got the best program, he’s got the No. 1 team — that’s not in the first paragraph anymore,” ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum said. “It’s what’s wrong with Georgia.”

This weekend, Smart’s second-ranked Bulldogs visit No. 4 Alabama, the longtime thorn to Smart’s program; Alabama beat Georgia in two of the past three SEC Championship Games. But that was with Smart’s former mentor, Saban, on the sideline. For the first time, Smart is the more established figure in the rivalry, with Kalen DeBoer just three games into his Alabama tenure.

And Smart has a Georgia team that’s the first since 2007 to be favored to win at Alabama.

“Kirby is in a special class,” said Georgia president Jere Morehead, who taught Smart in a business law class in the mid-’90s. “I knew he’d be successful. But his level of success is beyond anything I could’ve imagined.”

Unlike his mentor, Smart has remained largely anonymous nationally. He’s not in Aflac or Vrbo commercials. He does not make “The Pat McAfee Show” appearances. But his level of success through eight seasons as an SEC head coach largely mirrors Saban’s — two national championships apiece.

Smart first worked for Saban at LSU in 2004, before spending one season as the running backs coach at Georgia. He reunited with Saban for one season with the Miami Dolphins before following Saban to Alabama, where Smart took over defensive play calling after one season. Together, they produced top-10 defenses for eight consecutive seasons, including a 2011 unit that allowed just 8.2 points per game, the fewest at the FBS level in 23 years.

While working as an ESPN color analyst during that time, former Georgia and NFL offensive lineman Matt Stinchcomb would sometimes call Alabama games. Smart, his former college teammate, invited him to sit in on meetings with the linebackers the night before the game.

“I remember sitting there and being completely floored,” Stinchcomb said. “What was remarkable was Kirby’s mastery of the system and his ability to communicate it in a way where his guys could execute. I’d been around a bunch of coaches as a player and a commentator. He stood out.”

It seemed a matter of time before an SEC school made him its head coach. That school turned out to be his alma mater.

In 2015, when Smart was hired, Georgia had gone more than a decade since winning an SEC championship. Smart ended the drought in his second season in 2017, then brought the Bulldogs within one Tua Tagovailoa-to-DeVonta Smith miracle of winning a national title, too. Smart quickly established himself as a beast in recruiting, signing the nation’s No. 1 or 2 class between 2018-20.

While “intense” is the word most frequently used to describe the coach, those who have worked with him marvel more at his management skills and attention to detail. Smart, a four-time member of the SEC’s Academic Honor Roll while a player, holds a degree in finance from Georgia’s Terry College of Business.

“The guy could step out of coaching and take over a corporation and be a CEO and manage it the right way,” said Will Muschamp, a college teammate of Smart’s and now an analyst at Georgia. “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.”

“There’s not a guy I’ve been around that maybe coaches harder and more intense than coach Smart, but his intelligence is what has always impressed me,” Lanning said. “Never doubt the fact that he knows exactly what he’s thinking all the time. He remembers moments and situations. It’s super impressive.”

As he has become one of the most established coaches in his profession, Smart has embraced his role as a statesman, both as chair of the NCAA Football Rules committee and, following Saban’s retirement, the most influential coaching voice in his conference. Last spring at the SEC’s annual meetings in Destin, Fla., Smart led the discussions about the new NCAA roster limits in football, which eventually landed at 105.

“Kirby’s much more vocal than coach (Saban) in those settings,” said Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who worked alongside Smart for two seasons at Alabama. “(Saban) obviously, when he spoke up, everybody listened, but (he) didn’t really kind of comment on everything unless it was something that was really important to him, critical to him. Kirby kind of comments on every category.”

Between the active role he has taken off the field and the winning on the field, it should put Smart in a statesman-like role. But the never-ending string of arrests in his program hangs like a storm cloud.

“If you look at (each case) individually it doesn’t really change your opinion (of Smart). But the combination does sound bad,” said Finebaum.

Kirby Smart (here in 2023) has had major success in a short amount of time as head coach at Georgia. (Kim Klement Neitzel / USA Today via Imagn Images)

On Jan. 14, 2023, Georgia celebrated its second consecutive national championship with a parade and stadium celebration. At 2:45 a.m. that night, LeCroy, a 24-year-old recruiting staffer driving a university-leased Ford Expedition with three passengers at 104 mph, engaged in a high-speed race with Bulldogs star Jalen Carter, a soon-to-be top-10 NFL draft pick. LeCroy and one of the passengers, Willock, an offensive lineman, were killed when the vehicle crashed into two power poles and a tree. Toxicology reports showed LeCroy’s blood alcohol level at the time was .197.

Carter pleaded no contest to reckless driving and racing charges and was sentenced to 80 hours of community service.

One of the passengers in LeCroy’s vehicle, Victoria Bowles, sued the LeCroy estate, Carter and the Georgia Athletic Association, claiming she suffered spinal cord injuries that have caused “likely permanent disability.” Bowles, who was seeking around $172,000 in damages from each defendant, reached a settlement with Georgia last month.

Citing text messages between various recruiting staff members in the years prior to the crash, the complaint alleged staffers “regularly drove recruits and their guests after consuming alcohol.”

UGA disputed the claims.

Smart has suspended several of the arrested players, but said this summer that the school’s name, image and likeness collective has withheld payments from players as penalties for arrests and speeding tickets.

The reckless driving incidents in his program continue to occur, including three this summer and Harris’ arrest two days before Georgia played at Kentucky on Sept. 14.

He was asked in July why his program is so disciplined in everything but this area.

“It’s a great question,” Smart said. “And I’d love every solution possible because we actually write down now every time we talk about it and every time we address it, and we have someone in every meeting that hears that … it was like 162 times it’s been mentioned.”

His main strategy has been inviting guest speakers on the subject. They’ve included former NFL star Donte Stallworth, who was suspended for the 2009 season after striking and killing a pedestrian while intoxicated; former Georgia and NFL defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter, who was arrested on a DUI charge during Smart’s first season; and a prosecutor in the case of ex-Raiders receiver Henry Ruggs, currently in prison in Las Vegas for killing a woman while driving 156 mph.

Carson Beck, Georgia’s starting quarterback who now famously drives a Lamborghini, said the message is indeed hammered home.

“It’s been a serious issue on our team. But also we have hundreds of players, and a large percentage of our guys are very focused and very on top of that,” Beck said. “But obviously there are guys who have made mistakes, and there are consequences for that.”

Still, the incidents keep coming.

In addition to the driving incidents, receiver Rara Thomas was dismissed last month following an arrest on domestic violence charges, his second in two years. (The first charge was pleaded down.)

Richt, who dealt with numerous players’ legal issues during his time in Athens, said Smart is taking undue criticism.

“You can put everything you want in place,” Richt said, “but you can’t live their life for them, you can’t babysit them, you can’t be with them every step of the way to prevent them making a bad decision sometimes.”

Nick Saban, left, and Kirby Smart are forever tied. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)

Smart modeled many facets of his program on the juggernaut he helped Saban build at Alabama. Now he is attempting to build a dynasty that matches or exceeds the lofty bar his mentor set. In March, Smart told ESPN, “We’ve been relevant every year but the first one. But I want more than relevance. I want dominance.”

Asked what dominance looks like in a 12-team College Football Playoff, Smart said, “Dominance would not be defined by just getting in, it would be by getting to the Final Four or whatever you would call it in football. … Because at the end of the day, you’re gonna have to beat a really good football team in order to make it to the finals.”

In May, Georgia signed Smart to a 10-year contract that pays an average $13 million per year, making him the highest-paid coach in the sport. Saban previously held that title, making $11.4 million in his last season. It’s another point to be made that Smart is, as Lanning puts it, “the new GOAT.”

“I don’t want to put the mantle on him as being the next Nick Saban. That’s sort of an unfair place to put him at the beginning of a football season,” Morehead said. “I’m confident that going forward he will continue to enjoy great success.”

But the latest player arrests this summer prompted some writers to make comparisons to a more polarizing national championship coach whose legacy has been clouded over time by his players’ myriad off-field issues. One columnist likened Smart more to Urban Meyer than Saban.

Smart, notably, has changed his public tone on the off-field issues, from saying last year that it was a national problem, to dropping that and saying as recently this week that the issues “are terribly disappointing and something that we don’t stand for.”

Morehead calls the incidents “unacceptable” but lauds Smart for how he’s handled them.

“I’d really love to know how many other schools have brought in the outside speakers we’ve brought in, or have taken the disciplinary measures against violators that we’ve taken,” he said.

Smart certainly holds players accountable on the field. Even at practice, he’s the guy everyone sees getting heated during games. It’s often a mixture of humor and scolding, but always intense.

Star safety Malaki Starks, now in his third year in the program, says his coach seems to exist with a permanent chip on his shoulder. Which may seem odd given his accomplishments that few can match.

“When I first got here, I said, ‘Why are you like this? Like, what’s up with you?’” Starks said. “He just told me that he’s obsessed with getting better every day.”

Smart’s accomplishments no doubt will remain closely linked to Saban’s. Is he ready to take his mentor’s place atop the college football coaching hierarchy?

If so, the first step takes place Saturday at Saban’s former home stadium.

(Top photo: Rich von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire via Getty)