In fairness to Kirby Smart, being a head coach is so different from being an assistant, it takes time to get it down. Kirby is still working on it. Not that he has done a poor job. His three Bulldogs’ teams have gone 32-10. Good, but not near good enough to take down Alabama football.
Under Kirby, the Bulldogs appeared ascendant in 2017, winning the SEC Championship and battling the Alabama Crimson Tide to the wire in that year’s National Championship game. Rapidly rising expectations among Georgia fans led to assumptions 2018 would be the season Kirby and the Bulldogs took down Alabama football and Nick Saban.