Nick Saban hardly requires any introduction. The legend, who has 7 national championships, six at Alabama and one at LSU, announced his retirement from college football on January 10. But his shadow will probably never leave. That will have its strongest presence in the coaches he has mentored. Mark Dantonio from Saban’s Michigan State days, Jimbo Fisher during LSU and Kirby Smart, Mario Cristobal, Lane Kiffin, Dan Lanning, Steve Sarkisian, Mike Locksley from his 17-year run at Alabama- the list is long. Among them, Kirby Smart has a special place.

With 2 back-to-back national championships for Georgia as its head coach (2021 and 2022), 2 SEC championships, and 6 SEC East division championships, Kirby is still known to harbor a close bond with Saban, despite the GOAT stepping away. “I’ve spoken to him a lot more since he got out than while he was in, because I think he was so busy, just like I was, doing so many things,” Smart had said about his present relationship with Saban. But does he find himself filling up the space left void by Saban’s retirement?

Fans and analysts have often projected Smart as the ‘new GOAT’ after Saban left. After years of speculation, Kirby Smart has responded to claims that he is going to replace Nick Saban as the new face of college football.

In a YouTube video uploaded by ESPN college football, Smart was asked if he was interested in taking over that role and becoming the spokesperson for college football. “Well, I think there’s a lot of experience Nick had. I mean he worked across the country, worked in the NFL for a long time. He worked in other conferences. He had been a head coach for a really long time, so I don’t think anybody’s going to be filling those shoes any time soon,” Smart declared. Instead, he seems to be more focused on Georgia.

“I certainly want to be an advocate for college football and for college athletics as a whole. But not the primary spokesperson. I’ve got enough to worry about with Kentucky this week. I’m not worried about that,” Smart jokingly said. But the coach who started his journey under the mentorship of Saban at LSU in 2004 still fondly remembers the memories he has made with the legend. And his very first interaction with Saban during his stint at LSU was hilarious, to say the least, as Smart recalls.

It was Smart’s interview day with Saban for the former’s job at LSU as defensive backs coach. Smart was a graduate assistant at Florida State back then, and his friend Will Muschamp, then Saban’s defensive coordinator at LSU, had proposed his name.

“I go on the interview, and I’m young and unassuming, and there are all these stories out there that if Miss Terry [Saban’s wife] invites you to the house for dinner, she had to give you the OK. And if you didn’t get the OK, then you weren’t going to get the job,” Smart revealed. One more thing Smart had heard about Saban from Lance Thompson, who was leaving LSU to take the UCF defensive coordinator’s job.

“Working for Nick is like dog years. Every year feels like seven,” Thompson had said to Smart! With all those anecdotes in mind, Smart landed in the Saban household on a Super Bowl Sunday. “I was comfortable and feeling good about the way it was going, and I just say, ‘I don’t get it. People say working here is like dog years.’ I don’t know why in the hell I said that. Just dumb,” Smart had recalled in an interview with ESPN in February.

“Think about it. Why would you ever say something like that to an employer you’re trying to get a job with? But I did. I guess I wasn’t overwhelmed or intimidated. I was too young to know any better,” Smart had further added. The next morning it was Muschamp on the other side of the phone in the aftermath of the LSU staff meeting.

Muschamp told Smart that Saban lashed out at everybody, saying, “Which one of you dumba**es said it’s like dog years working for me? We’re trying to hire the guy, and you tell him that?” Smart still feels embarrassed about the incident after all these years. “I got the whole staff cussed out and somehow still got the job,” Smart stated. The bond that was formed on that day still remains strong despite Saban standing as a wall in front of Samrt’s national championships dream for seven long years after Smart arrived in his alma mater, Georgia.

The tables turned in 2021. Smart became the first of Saban’s former assistants at Alabama and just the second to defeat Saban with his Georgia after Jimbo Fisher, a former assistant at LSU and the head coach at Texas A&M. Fisher’s unranked Aggies team had upset the Crimson Tide earlier in that season. But his contribution is not just being one of the most successful coaches but much beyond that.

Nick Saban’s legacy lives on in the field, a foundation, with a lasting impact

Not only on the field is Saban’s impact valuable, but off the field, he and his wife Terry founded the Nick’s Kids Foundation. The foundation itself was established after coming to Tuscaloosa and has raised over 12 Million dollars for children’s causes, which has impacted the lives of many children. This charitable work means much more to his position as a coach; it defines him as a member of the community. The Georgian team is still under Smart’s management, which means that Saban not only teaches his proteges football but also an example of what a person can do for the development of the world beyond the game.

The retirement of Nick Saban in 2024 changes college football, and for Georgia’s head coach Kirby Smart, it opens a new chapter. Although Saban continues to be a source of information to Smart, the latter gets a chance to become the main tyrant in the SEC and even in all of college football, given Saban’s retirement from the game. With 52.50 game points, juggling Georgia’s back-to-back national championships, and molding the Bulldogs into a force to reckon with, Smart is now considered the man most suited to carry on what Saban began at Alabama.

Smart was with Saban at Alabama for 9 years, concentrating on defense and observing how this mentor constructed a championship program. Saban had made Alabama the flagship of the SEC for a long time, but Smart’s Georgia is the one that is up to continuing where Alabama left off, especially after showing that they could defeat Alabama in a national championship game such as in 2022.