It really doesn’t feel like it has been this long.
Kirby Smart is about to begin Year 11 at Georgia.
When Smart took over his alma mater in 2016, Georgia was a really good program searching for a way to finally get over the hump.
Ten seasons later, Georgia isn’t chasing college football’s elite anymore.
Georgia is one of college football’s elite.
Smart enters his 11th season with an incredible 117-21 career record, giving him an .848 winning percentage since taking over the Bulldogs.
He has already won two national championships, four SEC championships and 13 games six different times.
And outside of his 8-5 first season, Georgia has never won fewer than eight games under Smart.
But even those numbers don’t completely explain what he has built in Athens.
Georgia came painfully close to winning it all in Smart’s second season, losing the 2017 National Championship to Alabama in overtime.
Instead of allowing that loss to define the program, Smart eventually built something even bigger.
The Bulldogs went 14-1 and won the national championship in 2021, finally ending Georgia’s 41-year championship drought.
Then they somehow got even better.
Georgia went a perfect 15-0 in 2022, won another national championship and became the first program of the College Football Playoff era to win back-to-back titles.
And the winning hasn’t stopped.
Georgia went 13-1 in 2023, 11-3 in 2024 and 12-2 last season. The Bulldogs have also won back-to-back SEC championships entering 2026, giving Smart four conference titles during his tenure.
Over the past five seasons alone, Georgia is 65-7 with two national championships and three SEC titles.
That’s dominance.
Smart has also turned Georgia into an NFL factory, producing 20 first-round draft picks during his tenure.
Think about that for a second.
Kirby Smart has almost as many first-round NFL Draft picks as career losses at Georgia.
Now comes Year 11.
Georgia enters the season ranked No. 3 in the country, and once again, anything short of competing for another national championship is going to feel disappointing.
That’s the standard Smart has created.
There was a time when Georgia fans were wondering if the Bulldogs would ever get over the hump.
Now they’re wondering when the next national championship is coming.
117 wins.
Four SEC championships.
Two national championships.
And he’s only entering Year 11.
Kirby Smart hasn’t just changed Georgia football. He has created one of the most dominant programs of the modern era.
