Kirby Smart took over head coaching duties for the Georgia Bulldogs back in 2016. Over the course of his time in Georgia, Smart has become one of the best college football coaches in history. He currently owns 105 wins and just 19 losses with the Bulldogs, which is a testament to how well he’s coached.
Smart has won two National Championships with the Bulldogs, three SEC Conference Championships, and six SEC East Division Championships. In short, Smart is the top coach in college football today. On a recent episode on Josh Pate’s College Football Show, Smart unpacked his no-nonsense, “coaching hard” approach.
Kirby Smart’s Relentless Standard: Inside His Coaching Philosophy
In 2024, Georgia finished with the No. 51 overall offense, averaging 405.4 yards per game. While these are still good numbers, this is the lowest their offense has ranked since 2016.
The 6.03 yards per play were also the lowest in Smart’s tenure. You would have to go back to the 90s to find a Georgia rushing attack than the Bulldogs had in 2024, as they only racked up 124.4 rushing yards per game. This was good enough for No. 102 overall.
Despite the numbers still being strong, this was 50 rushing yards fewer than any other season under Smart. Unfortunately, the defense didn’t fair much better as they ranked No. 16, not being a top-15 defense for the first time in seven seasons.
Despite the down year by his standards, Georgia still finished with 11 wins and three losses and made it to the Sugar Bowl before losing to Notre Dame.
“The choice when you came here is I chose hard, getting coached, and constructive criticism is good for you to develop, and a lot of schools and coaches don’t want to do that,” Smart said when asked about players who get “offended” now when you coach them.
Smart continued, “So, we still do it here. We do it hard. Most of our good players, they embrace that. They want that. Brock Bowers comes and says how can I get better and show me another way. It’s the same way for Devante Wyatt.
“They want to be coached, and they want you to teach them how to do it. I don’t know if the masses, the large number we’re dealing with now, these kids, they don’t really want to be coached hard. So, they got to make a decision; they come here, they’re going to be.”
Smart also spoke about the coaching job by the staff recently, despite the down year by Georgia football standards.
“Best coaching job we’ve done by far, 100%,” Smart said. “We were not as good as some of the years previous, and we had twice the schedule some of the years previous. So to the naysayers, to the onlookers, to the people that don’t know, I respect everybody’s opinion. You can have an opinion.
“You can do what you want with it. I know football, and I know the level of schedule we had to play, and I know the roster we did it with, and I know the injuries we had.”
KEEP READING: ‘A Long Way From Good’ – Kirby Smart Extremely Critical of Georgia This Spring
“By far and away, the best job that our staff and our organization has done, easily, to go through the gauntlet we went through, number one, to get into the SEC championship was an accomplishment with that schedule,” Smart said.
“Because they don’t make the SEC schedule like they do the NCAA basketball pool where they say the quality of wins you have. They don’t do that. They just do it sheerly off who are the top two teams in the conference, but we were able to do that.”
Overall, Smart is a coach who will coach his players hard, and he was very upfront about that in his interview with Pate. He has a lot of trust in his players and coaching staff to deliver. Even after a down year, Georgia football remains an elite powerhouse in college football.
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