Kirby Smart to hit 100-game milestone but not focused on the past

ATHENS, Ga. — Kirby Smart’s head coaching career hits the 100-game mark on Saturday as his Bulldogs take on the Blazers of UAB (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

For Smart, the seven-plus years and 99 games up to this point have all been spent in Athens. He’s won 84 contests for his alma mater Georgia, and with a win as 42-point favorites, he would have the highest winning percentage through 100 games of a coach in SEC history.

Bear Bryant holds that mark now (81-12-7) while Smart’s former boss and noted mentor Nick Saban has the record more most wins in the first 100 games at an SEC school (84-16). Along with Bryant, Saban and Urban Meyer, Smart is one of just four SEC coaches in conference history to win multiple national titles within the first seven years with a program.

What does that mean to him? Not much. In fact, Smart claims he didn’t even know that it will be his 100th game on Saturday.

While he’s never been one for reflection, Smart did take a little time on Wednesday’s SEC coaches call to share what he thinks it has to say. To him, it says more about the people he’s been surrounded by in Athens – coaches, players, administration, etc. – than it is a testament to him.

“I guess it’s a marker of some sorts of first 100. You know, I don’t know the significance of it outside that,” Smart said. “I wasn’t aware of that, but it’s one of those things if you do a good job and recruit good players and you have a good organization and good support, it allows you to make it to that number, you know? And certainly want to go out and play our best game at that mark.”

Smart’s answer is about what you’d expect from him. He’s not focused on thinking back on the 84 games he’s won including many over rivals, two in Atlanta for the SEC Championship and another two on the sport’s biggest stage – bringing Georgia its first National Championship in 41 years only to follow it up with another one the very next season.

Instead, Smart is locked in on the present. That’s the thing that’s allowed him to get to this point, and it’s that very same thing that’ll allow him to hit milestones in the future. Complacency is a killer of success, and you certainly won’t find Smart resting on the laurels of his first hundred games.

“What impresses me about him is it doesn’t seem that they’re ever satisfied,” SEC Network host Dari Nowkhah said on SEC Now when discussing Smart’s milestone start to a career. “There’s a reason nobody since Bama a decade plus ago and before that it had been decades had repeated as National Champs. It’s easy to kind of rest on your laurels a little bit and lose some fight. They don’t ever do that. Not under Kirby.”

“It reflects not only in his coaching style, but it permeates throughout that locker room, especially when you look at other coaches and how their positions play. More importantly, you see it in the reflection of the play when it comes to the players,” Takeo Spikes added. “Guys are not taking plays off. Defensively, I’ve turned on the tape and I was like, ‘Let me look and see what’s different.’ Everything is the same, and the same is okay because you’ve got guys busting their hind parts to get to the ball, they’re celebrating each other when they get there. Ultimately for me, it’s the ability to not rest on your laurels and just inflict pain and will consistently throughout the day, and that comes back with a win.”

Georgia enters Saturday on a 20-game winning streak dating back to the Bulldogs’ College Football Playoff semifinal against Michigan in 2021. It’s tied for sixth longest in SEC history, chasing the 28-game mark set by Alabama twice (1978-80 and 1991-93). Georgia also has the nation’s longest active home winning streak at 21 games dating back to 2019.