ATLANTA – Ask Georgia players what it is like to play for Kirby Smart, and the responses are consistent and direct, just like the head man himself.
“He’s going to coach you and be hard on you,” says quarterback Stetson Bennett. “We kind of expect that.”
“It is hard sometimes,” said linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson. “He is very critical of what you do. Coaching you every moment of the day, every rep, every single second of practice. He makes it hard for you. But for games like this, it will make it easy for you.”
Smart has the reputation of eating, drinking and sleeping football 24 hours a day, and those within the Georgia program this week did nothing to dispel that notion. As the top-ranked Bulldogs prepare to take their next step in a quest for a second straight national title, Smart’s construction of college football’s next dynasty at his alma mater has come into focus.
Should Georgia take down No. 4 Ohio State in the Peach Bowl on Saturday and go on to win the national championship on Jan. 9 against either TCU or Michigan, as it is favored to do, Smart will join some of the sport’s legendary coaches. In the last 50 years, only Alabama’s Nick Saban (2011-12), USC’s Pete Carroll (2003-04), Nebraska’s Tom Osborne (1994-95) and Alabama’s Bear Bryant (1978-79) have won back-to-back national championships. Only Saban and Osborne did not share at least one of their titles.
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“He wasn’t in that class when I got here, but he’s working the same because he knows what happens to people who start listening to all that (praise),” said Bennett. “It doesn’t really matter if you don’t win football games. It is extremely impressive and I’m glad he’s my coach.”
Adding Smart to names like Saban, Bryant, etc., is an interesting sidebar to this College Football Playoff, but probably not to the man himself.
“Knowing him for a long, long time, he couldn’t care less (about elevating his stature in the game),” said Georgia defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. “He’s not looking for his just due. He’s worried about Ohio State. If we are fortunate enough to win that game, he’s going to worry about the next one. After all this is over, he’s going to worry about next season.”
The players know they are expected to perform at a high level, and that’s not just on Saturdays.
“You never want to be in his way, because you’ll get yelled at a little bit,” says sophomore Brock Bowers, the Mackey Award winner as the nation’s top tight end. “It all just makes you better as a person and a player.”
Offensive coordinator Todd Monken has been on Smart’s staff for three years, and he is still amazed at the energy Smart brings to the practice field.
“We are where we are because of him,” Monken said. “I wish I had his tenacity every single day. It drives us and drives the players. When you can show them why this works, why we need this, it helps. Because it is very demanding.”
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Bennett says the demanding nature of Smart’s approach needs to be understood by the players for it to be effective, and sometimes that can take time.
“If you base it on, ‘yeah, he’s being mean,’ but every single decision is for the betterment of the University and to win football games,” Bennett said. “He can be hard on you and he can be tough, but if you look at it and learn that every decision he makes is for us and for the team, then, so what? That’s pretty cool.”
All of the winning Georgia has done – six straight New Year’s 6 appearances, a 44-5 SEC record since 2017, two SEC titles, a national championship – reinforces to the players that the system and style developed in Athens is worth the struggles and work that can come with it.
“You are able to give them hard coaching when you can point to the results the players are seeing,” Muschamp said. “Winning helps. It reinforces hard work, reinforces what he teaches, it reinforces the things we emphasize as a program. When you are having success, it is easy to say, ‘look what’s happened academically, look what's happening in the NFL Draft, look at these players and things that are happening for them.’ When players see that and families see that, it helps in recruiting. Everything he does is what is best for the program.”
Bennett says getting pushed at the level Georgia players are pushed is not for everyone, but it obviously has not had a negative effect on Smart’s recruiting efforts. The Bulldogs have not ranked lower than No. 4 in the past six recruiting cycles and currently sit at No. 2 for the 2023 class, according to 247Sports.
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“Football players are real dudes,” Bennett said. “If you are not, don’t come. If you do come, expect hard work and competition. If you win those competitions, you are going to play for a team that has a chance to win the national championship. If not, that’s all right, you can play somewhere else, but that’s how it is going to be here, and no player is going to be above that.”
“I do what I tell them I’m going to do when I’m in their home (recruiting). I tell their parents I am going to push them and be demanding,” Smart said. “The guys who have left have flourished because of the demands we put into our program. I don’t know how other people do it, but I know that’s how we are going to do it here. I hope one day they appreciate it.”
Bennett knows he has a maximum of two games left in a Georgia uniform. He also knows Smart will not slow down in his efforts to build the most dominant program he can.
“I go back to that quote - I can’t remember when he told me,” Bennett said. “‘Success comes to those who are too busy to look for it.’ That’s probably the strongest characteristic of him."
