Kirby Smart has been a part of 10 Alabama-Georgia football games during his coaching career.
His 11th will be the first one that didn’t include Nick Saban.
Smart spent nine seasons on Saban’s staff in Tuscaloosa from 2007-15, including the last eight as defensive coordinator, before earning his first head-coaching opportunity with the Bulldogs following Alabama’s run to the 2015 national championship. He went 3-1 in this rivalry while wearing crimson alongside Saban but just 1-5 against him while dressed in red and black.
Saturday night inside Bryant-Denny Stadium (7:30 on ABC), Smart and his No. 2 Bulldogs will face the No. 4 Crimson Tide now under the guidance of Kalen DeBoer.
“I don’t expect it to be strange,” Smart said Monday afternoon in his weekly news conference. “It’s just the normal course of progression. I think it’s strange sometimes going back there because I lived there and our kids were born there and I spent nine years there and had such great experiences there.