At 47 years old, despite two decades of wear and tear from coaching college football, Georgia’s Kirby Smart exudes a boyish enthusiasm on the sidelines.
Following a hard-fought win at Auburn in late September, he grinned wildly while cheering on visiting fans dressed in red and black, tossing his visor into the crowd as he walked into the locker room to celebrate with his players.
In many ways, he hasn’t changed much from his days as a Georgia player. Same love for the game. Same boundless energy. Same haircut. Same school.
Defenders Smael Mondon and Javon Bullard weren’t alive when Smart arrived in Athens as a freshman defensive back in 1994. But they know the backstory.
Mondon recalled watching a clip of Smart’s playing days during a team-building meeting in camp last summer. Bullard said they’ll occasionally dig up Smart’s old highlights on their own, texting them to mess with their coach.
Mondon said “every now and then” Smart will talk smack about how he could’ve hauled in an interception they missed.
“He’ll rub those picks in your face,” Bullard said, smiling.
Smart might be better known as one of the top coaches in college football now, armed with two national championship rings. But before that, he was one of the best players in the SEC.
Smart will coach Georgia in the Orange Bowl against Florida State on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, ESPN), but 25 years ago, he hauled in a league-best five interceptions on his way to first-team All-SEC during his senior season with the Bulldogs. And that was after leading the league with six picks as a junior.
In an effort to better understand Smart’s origins, ESPN spoke to more than a dozen former teammates and coaches. Together,
they painted a picture of a brilliant, driven player who they suspected one day would make a great coach. In many ways he was already a coach on the field.
“Thirteen picks?” Bullard said of Smart’s final total, which still ranks in the top 10 at Georgia. “You can’t argue with that. Hell of a career, hell of a DB and one hell of a coach.”
Richard Seymour, Georgia defensive end (1997-2000) and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame: First of all, what I’d say is — and this is no slight to anyone — you don’t see a lot of white defensive backs, right? I mean, it just kind of stood out.
Corey Johnson, Georgia defensive back (1993-96): He didn’t have any muscle tone or anything like that. You would be like, “Man, is there somebody else at your high school that we really want? Or is your dad a coach and somebody owes him a favor? Like, why are you here?”
Glenn Ford, Georgia defensive back (1994-98): I used to cut his hair. I was pretty good with him, Paul Snelling, all those guys.
Matt Stinchcomb, offensive lineman (1995-98) and a member of the College Football Hall of Fame: [His hair] was actually a lot better in college. He’s let it poof out — but I don’t have enough hair to comment.
Ford: He won’t change it. [Laughs.] We used to cut a little bit more on the sides, but … I’m talking about it’s the same Charlie Brown haircut since we’ve been in school.
Dustin Luckie, linebacker (1995-98): He had the khaki shorts and the fraternity shirt, so it looked like just be a normal guy. But I want to get this straight: Even though Kirby didn’t look imposing, he was quite an athlete.
Stinchcomb: Let’s just speak plainly and dispense with all the faux — oh, he’s a heady player and tough over the middle and a good route-runner and a lunch-pail guy and a coach on the field and all that other garbage. He’s a white guy, so you wouldn’t think he would be that fast. But he was faster than people would’ve anticipated.
Champ Bailey, defensive back (1996-98) and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame: The way he was built, you had to be some type of athlete. … You better be good at something. And he returned punts, and I’m like, nobody just goes back there and returns punts unless you are pretty good at it.
Johnson: He enrolled early, and he was just bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, just eager to learn, competitive. He was like a sponge. He wanted to hang around the older guys from both sides of the ball.
I can remember him spending a lot of time with Brice Hunter and talking about the receiver side of the ball. He just wanted to touch on every angle that the game had. And that wasn’t really typical of a high school kid.
Brandon Tolbert, linebacker (1993-97): I thought I knew a little bit about football, but you could tell Kirby really knew a whole lot.
Ford: Very, very competitive. I don’t care what it was. It could be marbles, it could be debating. He wants to win ev-ery-thing.
Johnson: He’s still a high school kid and you are out there trying to go 7-on-7 and he would take his lumps. And he didn’t have to; it was not like any coaches were out there watching, but he wanted to get back out there because he wanted to get better. He wanted to be the best at what he did. He never shied away from jumping back up there and trying to apply the knowledge.
Seymour: He was always going to be in the right places. And I think as a safety, we knew he was well prepared. So just as a student of the game, obviously A-plus.
Joe Kines, defensive coordinator (1993-97): When he talked, his teammates listened. And he was fun to be around because he knew what he was talking about. He had been around [football] since he was in the fifth grade.
Bailey: He had a good time. He hung out with the guys. He was never one of those just always in a book.
Tolbert: He was very interested in what you had to say or what anybody had to say about it. He was dialed into that. And I think that helps him today.
Trey Sipe, defensive back (1993-97): He’s a fun guy, and the media never sees that because he’s always Mr. Serious and all that. He can take ribbing.
And the group we had, he was one of the younger guys. But, buddy, he was witty and he could give it right back to you, dude.
Tolbert: I can’t remember if it was at lunch or breakfast, but [quarterback Mike Bobo] was just kind of messing around with him. Kirby forgot his napkin or something.
He went back up there to get his napkin, and Bobo put a little hot sauce in his drink. He came back, took a sip of it, and I can’t remember exactly what Kirby said,
but he jumped in him pretty good. I don’t think Mike ever did it again. Kirby’s got a pretty good vocabulary, so it’s probably one of those words.
Sipe: You couldn’t ever one-up him, man. He’d always have something in the back of his mind that he’d throw at you. You’re like, “Man, what in the world?”
Stinchcomb: He’s got a pretty active mind, a busy mind. Maybe it was him thinking about football or whatever, but it always seemed like there was something else running on his desktop, so to speak.
Like, he could be sitting in class and be there in class and capturing whatever’s going on in class, but also have two or three other things that were occupying his thoughts.
Sipe: You definitely didn’t have to be around him very long to realize that he was a pretty smart cat.
Stinchcomb: I always hesitate when I talk about him as being a future coach because oftentimes it’s associated with guys that are out there just because they’re smart and maybe can anticipate and all that other stuff — that was all true — but in lieu of being a good athlete.
But the guy was a good player. So even if he was half-witted, he was still a good football player. You could blitz him, he could get a quarterback on the ground.
He’d come up and run support. He could play the ball in the air, and just the things that you would look for in a safety and could quarterback the back end and would.
Sipe: When he had a chance to shine, he did. I’ll never forget, we’re practicing, and they throw out the freshmen there to give us a look. It’s a live kickoff.
Well, Kirby was back deep and he takes the dadgum thing all the way back for a touchdown. That’s when I knew. I was like, “This guy’s a little different, man.”
Chris Scelfo, offensive line coach (1996-98): He carried himself with this, as we say nowadays, swag. But it was just confidence because he knew what he was going to do every day. You got a consistent person every single day.
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