Kirby Smart shares what he learned working under Nick Saban

Kirby Smart has built Georgia into the current top program in college football as the Bulldogs have won back-to-back national titles and have a shot to win a third straight.

There have been plenty of challenges for Smart along the way, including helping his team learn how to deal with success.

Smart joined the Pat McAfee Show on Friday and spoke about that and how working under Alabama coach Nick Saban helped him. Smart was the defensive coordinator with the Crimson Tide under Saban, before taking over the Georgia program.

“It’s the hardest thing that I’ve had to do as the head coach. I thought getting to be a head coach, getting in front of the team, making in-game decisions was tough. That’s become much easier,” Kirby Smart said. “It’s dealing with any success you have. And I got to sit under the GOAT – the greatest to ever do it – and watch him deal with winning back-to-back and how you deal with that.”

No one has had the success that Saban has had over the years.

Saban is arguably the greatest coach in college football history, thanks in part to his ability to push the right buttons with his team.

That’s something Smart has also tried to do to keep his players from getting satisfied with winning two straight titles.

“I tell our freshmen all the time, ‘You inherited this. You didn’t do anything to do this. You inherited it.’ And they don’t understand that. They think, ‘Well, I’m entitled to this. I’m supposed to get this. I’m a winner automatically because I chose Georgia,'” Smart said.

“No, you inherited what you got – a culture that a lot of the guys that created it… Well, half of them are in Philadelphia. But there’s a bunch of them in the league. And at the end of the day, it’s hard to sustain that. You do it with a bunch of guys who believe in the process we have and the physicality we practice with and how hard we work. They really believe that’s our edge.”

With all of the success that Georgia has had recently, the Bulldogs have also had to deal with getting everyone’s best shot.

Teams are always at their best when they play Georgia, knowing what a win would mean for their program. That’s been an adjustment for Smart, too.

“It’s been a new place for us. It’s not a place that we’ve been comfortable with. We just won our first one in forever two years ago and last year was kind of different. It was like, ‘Oh man, everybody’s coming after us.’ No, no, we’re not doing that. We’re hunting them. And we kept that mentality of we’re on the attack,” Smart said. “I do think that our kids believe we’re going to win every game… I don’t know that we had that four or five years ago.”