I might not have a conference championship or a national championship as a head coach, but I had the recruiting factor. – Kirby Smart
A lot of people think our standard is to be first in the SEC, be first in the country, first in our red zone, and run defense. We really don’t go by that motto. We go by, ‘Be the best Alabama defense there’s been.’ – Kirby Smart
What I’m worried about is our team and our players developing and getting better. That’s the most important thing. – Kirby Smart
The amount of pressure that I’ve put on myself as a defensive coordinator for the last 10, 11 years, I really believe there’s a lot more decisions that go into that position than the head coach. – Kirby Smart
The ultimate deal is: Are you winning and are you successful? The guys who’ve done that have had opportunities. – Kirby Smart
Welcome to the world we live in as coaches. You’ve got to figure out what you can do best and better to get these kids a chance to be successful. I think that comes through a lot of things – confidence, improvement, recruiting. – Kirby Smart
It never stops. It’s 365 recruiting. That cell phone you’ve got, these smartphones are the death of college coaching. – Kirby Smart
It’s very important that we don’t make the same mistakes twice. That’s a big part of improvement. – Kirby Smart
I’ve seen Coach Saban over the years have to make a lot of tough decisions, and there’s not one decision he doesn’t make that he doesn’t bounce ideas off the staff. To me, that’s invaluable. – Kirby Smart
You’ve got to be diversified enough. That’s the truth in the SEC and in college football. – Kirby Smart
What you have success with, you feel comfortable with, you always rely on that a little bit. – Kirby Smart
I think in order to push kids and coach kids the way we want to coach them, we’ve got to have their trust. – Kirby Smart
I felt like I was selling a product of the University of Georgia that’s really special and really special to me as far as the education you can get, the development you can get, and the league we play in. That’s what I’ve sold. – Kirby Smart
If you chart SEC champions over a 20-year period, the one consistent thing to me is you’re not going to win if you don’t have a quarterback. It’s too critical of a position. He decides something every play. – Kirby Smart
I’ve got recruits that will text and call and do everything in the middle of the night. And I’m thinking, ‘I’m with my family.’ But you’ve got to dedicate time to that, or you can’t do it. – Kirby Smart
Every young man that we want to bring here to the University of Georgia, we want them to graduate from this place. – Kirby Smart
I could finish my career being a defensive coordinator and say, ‘Hey, he’s Mickey Andrews.’ – Kirby Smart
I always felt like, one of the niches is if you can recruit the SEC, you can be a head coach in the SEC. – Kirby Smart
It’s a lot more important to get quality young men and good student-athletes that can be successful at the University of Georgia. That’s my No. 1 goal. – Kirby Smart
It’s always a danger when you’ve got a great quarterback that throws the ball well, that scrambles well. You may push him into his asset. You may force him to do what he does best. So you’ve got to be able to throw curveballs and stop the pass as much as stop the run. – Kirby Smart
Every kid I’ve been around as a football player, they want their coaches to make them better as men and as players. – Kirby Smart
To be honest, it makes you a lot better coach when your boss is in the meeting room. You’re a lot more driven every day. – Kirby Smart
It’s never me against Saban, and I have too much respect for him to say that anyway. I never felt that way. – Kirby Smart
