When Georgia takes the field on Saturday to play Alabama in Bryant-Denny Stadium, the opposing sideline will be without a familiar face.
That’s because legendary Alabama head coach Nick Saban officially hung up the headset in January after a decades-long career that saw seven national titles. Six of those came in Tuscaloosa, where he had been the coach since 2007. Saban leaves behind an unparalleled legacy in college football and is almost unanimously regarded as the greatest head coach in college football history.
Saban became known not only for winning championships and producing NFL talent, but for his illustrious coaching tree. From Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin to the New York Giants’ Brian Daboll, several of his former assistants have gone on to earn head coaching jobs both in the college ranks and the NFL. But the most successful of them all is Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, who was Saban’s defensive coordinator at Alabama from 2008 to 2015 before taking the head coach job at Georgia.
“He’s the best assistant coach we ever had, on defense especially, and seeing the big picture of the game,” Saban said of Smart on SEC Network this summer. “Our players were happy when Kirby had the opportunity to go to Georgia, because he did such a great job of helping them develop them and he did a great job for us, and you know, that’s their motivation. So you’re happy to see it happen for them and he’s done a great job at Georgia.”
Georgia and Alabama had their fair share of memorable matchups before Smart took the reins in Athens, most notably in a nail-biting 2012 SEC championship game where Georgia came up just short in the final seconds. But the rivalry kicked into another gear once Smart returned to his alma mater.
The two teams met a total of six times with Smart and Saban as head coaches, with three of those being SEC championship games and two being national title games. Smart is only 1-5 against Saban, though his lone win came in the 2021 national championship for Georgia’s first national title in 41 years. Smart said in March that his respect for Saban kept him from being too irritated about his less-than-stellar record against his old boss.
