Kirby Smart’s goal for the Georgia Bulldogs is dominance, not relevancy.
The ninth-year head coach has taken UGA to an entirely different level since taking the helm in 2016. Since going 8-5 in his first season — excluding the 9-2 shortened season due to the pandemic — Smart has led Georgia to six seasons of at least 11 wins, including back-to-back national championships.
“I was brought here to win championships, but the thing I’m proudest of has been the consistency,” Smart told ESPN’s Chris Low. “I look back on Year 1 (when Georgia went 8-5) as a failure and not the standard, but every year after that we’ve been right there.”
Smart went on to compare UGA’s dominance to that of Alabama and his former mentor Nick Saban.
“Nobody else over that span can say they’ve finished in the top seven at the very end for seven straight years. You can’t find it, not even at Alabama.”
Despite two national titles and two SEC Championships under his belt, Smart believes relevancy isn’t the standard in Athens.
“We missed the damn playoff three times by being No. 5 or No. 6, so those are missed at-bats we would have had in this 12-team playoff. We’ve been relevant every year but that first one. But I want more than relevance. I want dominance, and we’ve been more dominant in the last three years. What I don’t want are the ebbs and flows or the one-hit wonders you see out there. I don’t want any player to leave Georgia without a championship.”
Georgia arguably should have made last season’s final four. The expanded 12-team College Football Playoff will give Smart’s Bulldogs more opportunities to make a postseason run each year.