Kirby Smart to Nick Saban after SEC title game: 'You can't keep doing this much longer'

Kirby Smart and Nick Saban have a long history together and against each other. The final chapter was Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs falling to Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship Game back in December.

Saban and Alabama would lose to eventual national champion Michigan in the College Football Playoff semifinals. But the latest CFP appearance appeared to be one of the best coaching jobs of his career.

For Smart, he knew the end was near. Well, at least in a joking manner because he probably couldn’t believe Saban was still coaching at that high of a level.

When the two spoke at midfield of the SEC title game, following Alabama’s win, Smart revealed what he said to Saban.

“I just said, ‘Look, I appreciate all you’ve done for me and my career. You’re one of the best to ever do it, and I have immense respect for you.’ And then I joked with him. ‘You can’t keep doing this much longer,’” Smart told Saban, via ESPN.

Smart conquered Saban in the national championship game a couple of years ago, becoming one of the rare times a former Saban assistant defeated the master.

While it seemed like this latest CFP run would keep Saban on the sidelines, the Alabama coach elected for retirement and it paved way for new coach Kalen DeBoer.

Smart looks like the top dog in college football, rather than Saban in 2024, but the mutual respect is admirable from both.

“When I hired Kirby, he was really, really young. He was a position coach and did a great job as a position coach. We elevated him to be the coordinator. I kind of knew that he had great leadership qualities. That’s why we made him coordinator. When he was a coordinator, he did a great job of managing that side of the ball. I knew he’d be an outstanding head coach someday,” Saban recalled of Smart prior to the 2023 SEC Championship Game between the two as head coaches. 

Once Smart left Alabama for Georgia, it was a slow build and eventually two straight national titles and nearly a third, if it weren’t for Saban of course.

“It’s phenomenal what he’s been able to accomplish at Georgia, Saban said of Smart. “I mean, to win as many games in a row, win a couple championships, have another chance to do it again a third time, I mean, that’s phenomenal. It’s phenomenal to win however many games – what is it, 29, I don’t even know for sure – but how many games they’ve won in a row… 

“We won 19 games in a row here twice. I know how hard that was. It’s hard to sustain. So he’s done a phenomenal job of recruiting and developing players in the program. I think the result bears that out.”