Kirby Smart keeps climbing up the ladder of coaching legacy with each passing season. He constructs elite rosters, maintains a ruthless standard, and keeps winning in an SEC environment. But all of us know more about Coach Smart than we know about ‘Player’ Smart. Long ago, there were helmets before headsets, and according to a certain Georgia legend, Kirby Smart, with a helmet on his head, “was an as—le.”
That certain someone is none other than 12x Pro Bowler Champ Bailey. The Hall of Famer shared Georgia’s secondary with Smart and knows the wiring inside that helmet better than we ever will. In a recent appearance on the 680 The Fan podcast, Bailey described Smart as the veteran voice who kept everyone in check, especially the secondaries. “You know what, when we played, he was always that guy in the meeting, just telling us how much we’re doing wrong, telling us what to do,” Bailey said. According to him, Smart had always been infected with the coaching bug; diagnosing problems all around him was his hobby.
Bailey lined up as a cornerback while Smart suited up as a safety, and it’s football 101 that cornerbacks and safeties are constantly communicating with each other. ‘You know, from a coverage standpoint, he was my safety, so as a corner, we communicate with the safeties more than anybody, ‘ Bailey said, before adding, ‘so you know whether it’s getting lined up right or you know, anticipating movement or whatever it may be. He was the guy that got us lined up.” The relentless focus Coach Smart demands from his team right now is exactly what he demanded from the team back then as well. Every problem was called upon, every silly mistake was cracked open, and the sideline shouting was the hash mark shouting then.
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And that’s the context of Bailey’s further comments on Smart. ” I mean, he was to be frank. He was really an as—le. I mean, I’m sorry, but that’s who he was, so you can see a little bit of that on the sideline. I don’t know if y’all pay attention to him, but he, he’s a little much.” But he didn’t mean this in a demeaning manner. It was pure respect for the grind that Smart put in himself, but also expected of others, too.
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Bailey’s further comments clear this up. He continued, “But you know, when you really peel back what he’s saying and what he’s doing and what he’s coming from, this dude just loves football, and he loves to win, so you can’t frown upon that. I don’t care how he delivers the message; you just know where it’s coming from. I mean, he’s a winner.” And that’s exactly what Smart has grown up to be, a winner.
In the end, both men have lived at the peak of the sport in different roles. Bailey went on to become a record-breaking cornerback and one of the best in the world, while Kirby Smart is successfully dominating the absolute pinnacle of college football. What once felt like nitpicking to Bailey has worked quite well for Kirby Smart since he has carved out a career of that exact same trait, which led him to be perceived as an as—le. Now, diagnosing problems, nitpicking mistakes, shouting from the sidelines, all of these traits end up making you a coach who collects national championships like Pokémon.
When Smart’s iron men had to prove their mettle
Georgia’s 44-41 win over Tennessee was one of the best college football games so far this season. With that win, Georgia extended their winning streak over the Volunteers to nine games. But this recent win bore a tough toll on the Bulldogs, which you might’ve missed over the loud celebrations. The 60-minute game quickly turned into an endurance exam that tested every bit of Georgia’s conditioning.
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Micah Morris, Drew Bobo, and Monroe Freeling each logged a whopping 95 snaps. “Micah Morris said he was probably the most tired of himself, Drew Bobo, and Monroe Freeling after each played 95 snaps on Saturday,” Dawgs247’s Jordan D. Hill reported, with Morris adding the telling detail that “he didn’t think he’d played that many snaps before.” This game was the real display of SEC football, where players were running a marathon in full pads while getting hit with freight trains at full force every few seconds.
And credit should be given where it’s due. Tennessee gave their all on the field that day. After the first quarter, it was clear as day that this game was not a collection of sprints. It was a marathon. One second-half drive went on for seven minutes and forty-one seconds and had 14 plays. And although it ended in a touchdown, it was evident that none of the linemen were hesitating in giving their all. Morris and company will be working on every small detail that they missed this bye week, but they should be proud to have passed a test that most offensive lines will never face in their entire career.