ATHENS — Kirby Smart recalled Thursday the first time he met Nick Saban. It was at a private airport in Mobile, Alabama, and Smart, then a fledgling graduate assistant at Florida State, met Saban there to interview for an assistant coach position at LSU.
Smart recalled that he got there an hour early to make sure he wasn’t late.
“I probably wasn’t as intimidated then as I should have been,” Smart shared on Atlanta radio station 92.9 The Game. “It was right after he had won the first national title. We had a nice interview and coach (Will) Muschamp was there.”
That was in February 2004. The interview must have gone well because Saban hired Smart as LSU’s defensive backfield coach and, well, the rest is history.
That day in Mobile began a 20-year, deeply intertwined relationship between Smart and Saban. Smart would follow Saban to Miami to coach the Dolphins in the NFL, then he followed Saban to Tuscaloosa where he became his defensive coordinator at Alabama. Even after leaving for the head coach’s job at Georgia, Smart and Saban entangled six times as opponents on the football field, daily on the recruiting trail and yearly on the golf course.
Saban, 72, retired as the Crimson Tide’s head coach Wednesday. He did so with the unchallenged distinction of “Greatest Of All Time” in college football, also known as “GOAT.”
“I have a lot of respect for him as a coach and a man,” Smart said. “What he and ‘Ms. Terry’ have meant, not only to the game of football but to Tuscaloosa, has been incredible. He’s put a lot of coaches through his coaching factory, I can assure you of that. And from what I hear, it sounds like he was still working and coaching to the last minute over there yesterday. So, a lot of respect for him and what he’s done for my career.”
Unfortunately for Smart, Saban got the best of him and the Bulldogs. In six meetings against Alabama, the Crimson Tide won five of them. That included the 27-24 loss in the SEC Championship game Dec. 2 at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium that ultimately jettisoned Georgia from the 2023 College Football Playoff.
“Nobody in this business works as hard as he does,” Smart said. “He demands a lot of his staff, but a lot of it he does himself, and I’ve got a lot of respect for that. I know how hard it is to do it at that level for a long time.”
TV cameras and microphones caught the conversation that Smart had with Saban during pregame warmups before the SEC title game last month.
“You’re right about one thing, I’m too old for this (expletive),” Saban said with a laugh as they shook hands midfield.
“No, you ain’t. Y’all did a great job this year,” Smart replied.
“Nobody has done as good a job as you have,” Saban said of Smart, who led Georgia to the previous two national titles, including beating Alabama in the 2021 championship game.
“Hell of a coach,” Smart said to Saban. “Appreciate all you did for me.”
Smart downplayed that exchange during Thursday’s radio appearance. He indicated it wasn’t quite as “touchy-feely” as the edited clips would indicate. In actuality, the two men have a more business-like and competitive relationship that includes an infamous daily group chat that includes Lane Kiffin and a number of former Saban assistants.
“The actual footage is longer than that; they cut it up the way they want,” Smart said. “… But there’s a lot of respect both ways between he and I, and I’ve told him that. I make it a point to tell him how much I appreciate how much he’s done for the game and for other coaches, not just me. He’s done a lot for the game of football.”
Smart intimated that he didn’t know that Saban’s retirement this year was imminent but wasn’t necessarily surprised by it.
“Yeah and no,” Smart said Thursday. “I was a little shocked when it came out, but it’s one of those things that’s inevitable for all of us. We all walk away. Sometimes we walk away on our own terms and sometimes we don’t. I think it’s pretty cool that he got to walk away under his own terms.”
Radio station hosts Steak Shapiro and Rusty Mansell didn’t ask Smart the question a lot of Georgia fans probably wanted to hear him answer. That is, you wouldn’t have any interest in succeeding Saban and taking over the Alabama program?
But Smart, who signed a 10-year contract worth $112.5 million in 2022, has addressed his future at UGA many times before.
“This is home for us, our roots run deep here,” Smart said then. “My commitment to this University and our football program is unwavering.”
Smart and wife, Mary Beth, are in the process of a multi-million dollar renovation of a new home in Athens.
