If anyone is going to win like Nick Saban, it will be Kirby Smart. Saban’s defensive coordinator took the Georgia job with the promise that he’d enjoy the same kind of resources in Athens as Saban had in Tuscaloosa. Smart got everything he wanted while building the Bulldogs into a machine that won back-to-back national championships
Getting to the top was hard for Smart. Staying there might be harder.
Smart’s old boss managed to do it even as an unprecedented number of Alabama players become top NFL draft picks. After winning back-to-back national titles and reeling off 29 consecutive victories, Smart’s Bulldogs have shown the cracks left behind by the roster attrition of players going to the NFL and transfer portal.
The latest wave includes at least 11 Georgia players who’ve entered the portal since Georgia’s final game. The Bulldogs also could have as many as six players selected within the top 100 picks of this year’s draft. Smart has built Georgia into an elite program by attracting several of the top high school prospects to Athens every year. He’s gotten diminished returns as the some of those players move on to the NFL or the transfer portal.
That comes with the usual caveat that the Bulldogs are still an elite program since winning back-to-back championships. Last season, they missed the four-team playoff after losing to Alabama by a field goal in the SEC Championship game. Georgia just lost in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals while playing a backup quarterback. CFP berths are the floor for the Bulldogs now that the field is 12 teams.