On Monday night, regardless of the outcome of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, Kirby Smart will coach his final game as defensive coordinator for Nick Saban before moving on to focus all of his energy on being the head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. Smart, who was hired to replace Mark Richt last month, has been splitting his responsibilities between running the Georgia program and assembling a staff and preparing Alabama for a national championship run. Smart has been a valuable member of Saban’s assistant staff, and the head coach of the Crimson Tide has some positive predictions for Smart as he take son his first head coaching job.
“I’m sure he’s going to be a very, very successful head coach,” Saban said about Smart, according to the Dawg Nation. “But these things are inevitable when you have really good assistant coaches. They work hard and aspire to have the next opportunity. I appreciate and respect the great job that they did for us. But it also makes you pleased and happy and proud to see them get an opportunity to do the things that they wanted to do.”
Any time a program has as much success as Alabama, assistants are going to get a lot of looks for potential jobs elsewhere. Smart has been in the rumor mill to a certain degree in recent years, but the time finally came for him to accept a head coaching gig that was his bets possible fit. Once the Georgia job was opened up, Smart was immediately one of the leading candidates for the job. Leaving Alabama was not an easy decision for Smart because the relationship between coach and defensive coordinator was a strong one.
“You know, it’s sort of like you have a son and he’s moving away, and you want to see him do really, really well,” Saban said. “Because we all go through stations of life where things change, so now someone else will have a better opportunity. Kirby will have an opportunity. Somebody will have an opportunity to do what he does, and hopefully we can provide a little leadership and guidance that will help him along the way have a chance to be successful.”