Georgia football and Alabama are ready to do battle in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta as the Bulldogs look to repeat as conference champions. Ahead of this matchup, Kirby Smart sat down with ESPN's Laura Rutledge for an exclusive interview.
Rutledge asked Smart a lot of interesting questions, but she asked a fun one that completely stumped him.
Smart was asked how many SEC Championship games he has coached in throughout his career, and he thought he had coached in either six or seven. That answer however couldn't have been more wrong as Rutledge revealed that he has actually coached in 14 SEC Championship games in his career.
And the best part of all is that these 14 appearances have all come in the last 21 years, so during that timeframe Smart has been a coach in the SEC Championship game a whopping 66 percent of the time.
The moment we stumped @KirbySmartUGA. The SEC Championship Coaches show airs at 7 ET on @SECNetwork and features more from Kirby and @KalenDeBoer! pic.twitter.com/HTDm7cxUci
— Laura Rutledge (@LauraRutledge) December 5, 2025
ESPN reveals Kirby Smart's most impressive SEC stat
Smart obviously hasn't been Georgia's head coach long enough to coach in this game 14 times, so this includes games he coached as an assistant as well. But this data is still just as impressive when looking only at his tenure as Georgia's head coach.
Smart is in the middle of his tenth season as UGA's head coach, and during that time he has made the SEC Championship game eight times. This includes his current streak of five straight appearances which is only the second time in the history of this game that a coach has pulled that off.
Smart unfortunately only has a 3-4 record in the SEC Championship game so far as a head coach, and that includes an 0-3 record against Alabama. So Smart and Georgia would love nothing more than to improve on that record and win their second straight SEC title for the first time in his tenure.