Fresh off another loss to Alabama a year ago, Georgia football coach Kirby Smart was asked about his record as a head coach against the Crimson Tide.
He nodded knowingly when presented with the question about what went into going 1-6 against the program where he previously coached.
Advertisement
“I don’t know, what’s everybody else’s record against them, you know?” he said with a smile.
Smart went 1-5 against legendary coach and mentor Nick Saban and is 0-1 against Kalen DeBoer after a wild 41-34 loss in 2024 in Tuscaloosa.
“Has anybody got one better than one and six, that’s played them six times?,” Smart said last year after the loss in Bryant-Denny Stadium. “I don’t think so. I think they’ve got really good players. They’ve got a great program. I got an immense amount of respect for them. They do a great job. I mean, Nick’s recruited good players, Kalen’s gotten good players in here. It’s a tough battle. Of those ones, I mean, two of them have been here, you know? And they’ve been tough, they’ve been really tough battles.”
It’s another Georgia-Alabama game week. This time, the Crimson Tide is coming to Sanford Stadium for the first time since 2015. Yes, Smart finally gets the Tide on Georgia’s home field where the Bulldogs haven’t lost since 2019, a best in the nation streak of 33 straight games.
Advertisement
“Playing at home, it helps,” Smart said on Monday, Sept. 22. “The atmosphere helps, the crowd noise helps, being familiar with your surroundings and all that stuff helps. But at the end of the day, you got to go play football. It comes down to matchups, it comes down to who blocks and who tackles the best, who executes and does things in the key moments of the game. So, certainly glad it’s at home, but we’ve still got to play well.”
Alabama went 206-29 for an .877 win percentage under Saban, who won six national titles at Alabama.
DeBoer is 11-5 (.688) and 7-5 since the Georgia game on Sept. 28, 2024.
One of those losses was to Tennessee, which since 2016, is now one of three teams that has a better record against Alabama then Georgia. The Volunteers, LSU and Auburn are all 2-7.
Advertisement
Smart is a sterling 107-13 against everybody not named Alabama.
Georgia was dominated against another SEC foe, Florida, during a stretch it lost 18 of 21 games from 1990 through 2010 before winning three straight under Mark Richt from 2011-13.
Richt went 5-10 against Florida, but didn’t think the way the series went got into his players’ heads,
“After the fact you can probably say it, but I don’t think anybody believes that going in,” he said. “I think everybody believes any given day we’re going to win the game no matter who the opponent is. I don’t think we’re like this is something insurmountable. I think it’s something more for the fans to think about.”
Advertisement
Georgia has been tough to beat under Smart in his nine-plus seasons and impossible to beat so far at home and at night, a setting in which his teams are 17-0.
Smart said he’s noticed his players’ GPS numbers, which measure how fast they run, are slower during day games than at night with humidity playing a role.
“You end up with who can survive, not who can be the fastest,” he said. “And at night, you don’t run into those things. I think the crowd has a little longer to get prepared for it, and they’re louder. I mean, they’re not as taxed, not as much heat. So the games I’ve coached in, played in, been a part of, night games are a little more rowdy.”
Smart has two national titles including 33-18 against the Crimson Tide on Jan. 10, 2022 in Indianapolis, but lost to Alabama in the 2023 SEC Championship and last year in Tuscaloosa.
Advertisement
“Obviously, the memory is just losing, losing to Alabama,” Georgia guard Micah Morris, who started in last year’s game said. “Obviously, things didn’t work out like we wanted to. We fought though, but it just didn’t work out like we wanted it to. The main thing I’m looking forward to is getting back out there with my guys and just trying to do better than the last time.”
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Alabama 6-1 vs. Kirby Smart but Bulldogs get Tide in Athens finally
