Kirby Smart new all along that he wanted to be the head coach at Georgia one day, but he never knew how he would get there exactly. He did have an opportunity to coach at Georgia much sooner than he did as Mark Richt wanted to hire him ahead of the 2010 season to be his defensive coordinator.
This seems like an easy decision for him to make, and Smart was extremely close to accepting the job. But all it took was 10 minutes for Alabama athletic director Mal Moore to convince him to stay in Tuscaloosa.
Alabama AD convinced Kirby Smart to turn Georgia down in 2010
Right before Smart accepted the job to become Georgia's next defensive coordinator, Moore came to his house to recruit him to stay. This was something that had never happened to Smart before, but it's clear how impactful this short conversation was.
"He (Moore) came to my house, and this is the first time I ever had somebody show up at my house to recruit me. I mean, I didn't have anybody really recruit me out of high school. I wasn't good enough," Smart said via 247Sports.com. "He came to my door and knocked on the door, came in, sat down, and he won my wife over within like 10 minutes. And he was like, 'This is a special place. You're going to do special things.'”
Moore sold him on the vision of Alabama football which was just beginning to hit their stride under Nick Saban. Georgia on the other hand was a struggling program, so Smart decided to stick with the Tide which resulted in him winning three more National Championships before he finally got the call to be Georgia's head coach.
Kirby Smart's patience ended up being the perfect decision for his future
Georgia fans might think that Smart coming to Athens in 2010 would've been much better for the program, but that isn't necessarily the case because one of two things probably would've happened if he did take this job in 2010.
The first is that Georgia still would've struggled under Richt and Smart likely would've lost his job when Richt was let go. The second is that Georgia would've done really well which would mean Richt would stick around as their head coach for longer and Smart would've become a head coach for a different school.
So the smarter choice was to stay at Alabama, win a lot with them, and wait for Georgia to have a head coach opening. That is the exact vision that Moore sold him on and that is exactly what ended up happening.
"[He said] why go there to do a job that your hope would be that you would be head coach there one day," Smart said. "He felt like if I stayed there and was more successful I would get lots of opportunities at head coaching jobs. He had the foresight to see it."
This was a classic win-win scenario for Alabama and Georgia. Alabama benefited from having Smart for six more years while Georgia benefited from all of that experience once he finally took over in Athens.
Sometimes things work out exactly how they are supposed to, and Smart waiting another six years before returning to Georgia was the best thing that could've ever happened.
Now Smart is battling Alabama almost every year on the field and on the recruiting trail, and while it is easy to hate the Tide this story should add a whole new perspective on one of Georgia's biggest conference foes.
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