Nick Saban is all over Athens. Kirby Smart saw to that.
The man who won six national titles in Tuscaloosa can be found when you look at Georgia’s gleaming Payne Indoor Facility. He’s around when Bulldog freshmen don’t speak to media, and when the team takes the practice field in the afternoon despite the September heat.
The expectations are similar. The on-field product is similar.
The fear opponents feel when having to face the SEC’s ruling juggernauts is almost exactly the same.
“With Georgia and with Bama, 80% of the games those two teams play, the opponent is beat before the first kickoff,” former Crimson Tide quarterback and current ESPN analyst Greg McElroy said. “They really are. They look across the field and they see guys that are enormous. They look crazy athletic.”
Athens even has the familiar traffic barrels littering roads around town, much like Tuscaloosa. Those are a sign of construction, brought on, in part, by the growth from students coming to school for the football juggernaut.
“My 12-year-old son and his friend had a lemonade stand a few weeks ago,” Athens- Clarke County mayor Kelly Girtz told AL.com. “They probably did better than they would have done 15 years ago.”
Smart followed Saban’s blueprint to a T. He built Georgia to be as close an approximation to the Alabama dynasty as can be.
But when Smart returns to Tuscaloosa on Saturday, for only the second time since departing, the original won’t be one the other sideline to meet him.
‘Being around coach Saban’
Smart held off taking a head coaching job for years longer than he needed to. The opportunities were there for Alabama’s defensive coordinator, but he held out for the right situation.
“A lot of people have said, why not take a smaller school head job?” Smart said at his UGA introductory press conference in 2015. ” I honestly feel my growth was better being in a large program, being around Coach Saban and learning how to manage a lot of the tough situations you deal with.”
He started building like Saban immediately. Both figuratively, in talent acquisition and on-field scheme, and literally, forcing UGA to begin construction and modernize its facilities.
Jeremy Pruitt, then the Bulldog defensive coordinator, told media in 2014 that teams were using the program’s lack of a top indoor facility against it on the recruiting trail. The wheels began moving just before Smart took over, but he participated in the groundbreaking for the building in 2016.
That was just the beginning. Georgia renovated the west end of Sanford Stadium, building a new locker room, recruiting lounge, medical facilities and more.
Internally, he copied Saban as well. Smart has an army of support staffers, and the recruiting ability to fill a roster with five-stars.
Saban’s greatest trick was turning a dysfunctional program with endless potential into a dynasty. Smart has nearly done the same, winning two national titles so far, flipping a constant nearly-there UGA team into a perennial contender.
For several years, the two schools sat atop the league together, with Saban getting the last laugh in the 2023 SEC championship game. Smart was evidence that Saban’s dynasty blueprint could work if applied correctly.
Then, in January, Saban retired. Georgia was built in Alabama’s image, but the blueprint is gone now.
‘Don’t expect it to be strange’
Smart has only returned to Bryant-Denny Stadium once since he left. That was in 2020, Alabama’s last undefeated national title season, and it was in front of less than 20,000 fans due to pandemic restrictions.
This time around, his old boss, the man he worked under for 11 years won’t be on the other sideline.
“I don’t expect it to be strange,” Smart said Monday. “I mean, that’s just the normal course of progression. I think it’s strange going back there, sometimes because I lived there and our kids were born there and lived there for nine years and had such great experiences there. But we had that in COVID, it was more strange then.”
DeBoer got to town and made changes. Superstar freshman Ryan Williams has spoken to reporters, Alabama moved practice to the mornings, and music rings out over the fields.
Even the defense that Saban built is gone, in favor of Kane Wommack’s 4-2-5 “Swarm-D.”
Old Alabama is already gone. Georgia is its closest approximation in the modern game.
Smart even has learned to adapt like Saban, a trait that set his mentor apart from anyone else in the game.
“Georgia to me feels a lot like 2020 Bama,” McElroy said. “Not so much like the early versions of Bama. The early versions of Bama aren’t really that similar to what this Georgia team is. The early versions of Bama, frankly, it’s kind of similar to what Georgia was in Kirby’s very first couple years with Sony Michel and Nick Chubb and running the rock.”
If Saban wasn’t 72 years old, perhaps he’d have stuck around, figured out the modern era of college football, just like he did when he hired Lane Kiffin to modernize his offense on the way to two more national championships.
Instead, the throne is vacant. If Smart is going to ascend to the heights Saban reached, it should start now.
Though of course, Alabama might not be done yet.
‘They’re a different staff’
The Saban way has worked at both Alabama and Georgia. But it’s not the only way.
“I don’t know their game plan,” Smart said. “So I don’t know how similar it’ll be or different it’ll be. I mean, we’re a different team. They’re a different team. They’re a different staff. We’re a similar staff. So I can’t compare last year’s game to this year’s game.”
Alabama is different, but the roster is still exceptional, and DeBoer has a history of winning. He’s treated Saban’s legacy as something to be celebrated, but has changed the Crimson Tide to his liking, from the morning practices, to the rescheduled Walk of Champions, captain Cs on the uniforms and full-on embrace of NIL.
It’s worked so far. Alabama has a top-two recruiting class coming for the class of 2025, and sits at 3-0, fourth in the nation.
Saturday’s game will be a measuring stick for both programs, their first big test of 2024. Perhaps the Crimson Tide won’t fall into the abyss without Saban.
The UA faithful are hopeful at least.
“Ultimately, we’ll all find out together,” Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox said. “But I think he’s made winning at Alabama something that’s been institutionalized.”
Alabama players certainly weren’t shaking over the prospect of facing the No. 1 Bulldogs.
“The cliche motto is, it’s all about us,” quarterback Jalen Milroe said Tuesday. “That’s so true, especially when it comes to improving as a football team.”
The microscope will be on Tuscaloosa for the 6:30 p.m. CT game Saturday. College Gameday will be there, as will a former president, and the battle between new and old Alabama gets a primetime slot on ABC.
For the Tide, it’s a chance to show it can still thrive without the man who built the machine. For Smart, an opportunity to show Georgia is college football’s preeminent power, even without Saban to emulate.
“It’s the reason kids wanna come to Georgia,” Sart said “They say, ‘I wanna play in games like that.’ Most viewed game two weeks ago Saturday night was our game. It’s gonna probably be that way this Saturday night. When you start looking at it, kids wanna have an opportunity to play in those type games. And we’re gonna have more of them after this.”
