Kirby Smart delivers immense praise on Nick Saban, his impact on college football

When Kirby Smart worked as an assistant at Alabama from 2007-15, he was working for the consensus top coach in college football in Nick Saban. A lot has changed in the eight years since Smart left to take over at his alma mater, Georgia, but one thing has stayed the same.

He still has plenty of respect for his mentor.

Now a back-to-back national champion — the first of which, appropriately, came over Saban — Smart is rising up the ranks as one of college football’s top coaches. But he understands how much Saban has meant to the game as Alabama rattled off quite the run over the last 15 years, winning six national championships.

Saban’s success is why Smart gave him some of the credit for boosting the profile of the SEC in the ever-changing college football landscape.

“Nick’s been tremendous for our sport when you think about nobody has moved the college football game more than he has,” Smart said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “He has done a tremendous job at changing the game. The SEC is the premier place, primarily because he started bringing national championships there when he was at LSU. So he’s done a lot for this game.”

It’s safe to say Smart learned well under Saban during his time in Tuscaloosa. He initially joined the Alabama staff as assistant head coach and defensive backs coach, but moved up to defensive coordinator from 2008-15. That’s when he returned to Georgia as the head coach and turned the Bulldogs into perennial contenders, winning two straight national titles in 2021 and 2022 and amassing an 81-15 record since taking over in 2016.

With Georgia’s national championship victory in 2021, Smart not only ended a 40-year title drought for the Bulldogs, but did something no other former Saban assistant ever did. After that game, Smart put the magnitude of the victory into perspective — especially considering that 2021 team was what he considered to be Saban’s best coaching job at Alabama.

“[I have a] tremendous respect for what they do [at Alabama],” Smart said. “Let’s be honest – they’ve been the measuring stick. And I was a part of it for nine years and saw it. And I know the preparation that goes into national championship games.

“I mean, he doesn’t lose many national championship games when he has that time to prepare. And he does a really good job. So to do it and beat them, that’s special. But also I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, the way he runs his program. And really probably one of the best jobs he’s ever done with his team, because they were really young at some positions. And I think they’ve got the best player in college football in Bryce Young, and I saw it firsthand on the field in the SEC Championship.”