Kirby Smart earned his 100th win as a college football head coach on Saturday with a takedown of then-No. 1 Texas.
Among his victories, Smart, who took over the Georgia football program in 2016, has led the Bulldogs to three national championship appearances and two national titles.
The DawgNation staff evaluated Smart’s resume and looked at where the Texas win ranks. While the national championship win against Alabama was a consensus No. 1, some had the most recent win as high as No. 3 overall.
Mike Griffith
Championships matter, and so does beating Alabama, and that’s why the 2021 CFP championship game tops the list of Kirby Smart’s biggest wins. It was the Bulldogs’ first national championship in more than 40 years, and it was a breakthrough.
The 2022 CFP title was big, too, and Ohio State represented the biggest threat in the CFP Peach Bowl Semifinal. The Bulldogs came from double-digits down with sterling play-calling, adjustments and elite performances by the offense, defense and special teams units.
Kirby Smart is 3-1 against No. 1 teams, and the two most recent wins over top-ranked teams — at Texas, and against CFP No. 1 Tennessee — represented contests where the Bulldogs’ legacy and place atop the SEC was on the line.
- Georgia vs. Alabama (CFP National Championship on Jan. 10, 2022)
- Georgia vs. Ohio State (Peach Bowl on Dec. 31, 2022)
- Georgia vs. Texas (2024)
- Georgia vs. Tennessee (2022)
- Georgia vs. Oklahoma (2018 Rose Bowl)
Jeff Sentell
There’s probably 15 wins that qualify for consideration in his career Top 10. My sorting criteria falls upon what did it actually mean. Was it a game where you can recite the score and fans will know who UGA played? Texas was big, but it only looms large in the sample size of this season. The ones that rank above it for me move the needle among the greatest wins in Georgia history. Not just Smart’s coaching history.
- Georgia vs. Alabama (CFP National Championship on Jan. 10, 2022)
- Georgia vs. Oklahoma (2018 Rose Bowl)
- Georgia vs. Michigan (Orange Bowl on Dec. 31, 2021)
- Georgia vs. Ohio State (Peach Bowl on Dec. 31, 2022)
- Georgia vs. Clemson (2021)
- Georgia vs. TCU (CFP National Championship on Jan. 9, 2023)
- Georgia vs. Auburn (2017 SEC Championship Game)
- Georgia vs. Notre Dame (2017)
- Georgia vs. Texas (2024)
- Georgia vs. Tennessee (2022)
Kaylee Mansell
Although Kirby Smart’s tenure has been filled with plenty of thrilling games, there’s a certain level of poetic justice that comes with his 100th win at Texas. Despite still being at the top of their game, the Bulldogs were an underdog for the first time since 2021 with almost all of the national media picking the favorite. Yet, the Bulldogs delivered what I consider to be Kirby’s fifth best game of his tenure.
- Georgia vs. Alabama (CFP National Championship on Jan. 10, 2022)
- Georgia vs. Ohio State (Peach Bowl on Dec. 31, 2022)
- Georgia vs. TCU (CFP National Championship on Jan. 9, 2023)
- Georgia vs. Tennessee (2022)
- Georgia vs. Texas (2024)
Connor Riley
I have the win over Texas at No. 10. Maybe it rises higher if Georgia goes on to win a national championship or if this starts a series of epic clashes against the Longhorns. Now that Georgia has fully arrived as a championship-winning program, regular season wins don’t carry as much weight as they did in the early days of Smart’s time at Georgia. It’s all about the endgame and perhaps this Texas win helps Georgia get there, again.
- Georgia vs. Alabama (CFP National Championship on Jan. 10, 2022)
- Georgia vs. Ohio State (Peach Bowl on Dec. 31, 2022)
- Georgia vs. TCU (CFP National Championship on Jan. 9, 2023)
- Georgia vs. Oklahoma (2018 Rose Bowl)
- Georgia vs. Michigan (Orange Bowl on Dec. 31, 2021)
- Georgia vs. Clemson (2021)
- Georgia vs. Auburn (2017 SEC Championship Game)
- Georgia vs. Notre Dame (2017)
- Georgia vs. Tennessee (2022)
- Georgia vs. Texas (2024)
Brandon Adams
The 2021 national championship was the ultimate triumph against the program’s arch nemesis, quickly followed by the 2022 title game: an anticlimactic conclusion to a perfectly dominant season. The trio of CFP semifinal wins come next before Smart’s first trophy with the Bulldogs in the 2017 SEC Championship vs. Auburn. Then comes The 2021 season opener, when Clemson entered the game with two national championships and numerous playoff appearances, but UGA exited that night with proof it was ready to make a dramatic leap as a program.
Then comes Texas. Much has changed this season in the SEC, but a wild win vs. the Longhorns showed UGA is still a force to be reckoned with.
- Georgia vs. Alabama (CFP National Championship on Jan. 10, 2022)
- Georgia vs. TCU (CFP National Championship on Jan. 9, 2023)
- Three-way tie of CFP semifinal wins: Ohio State (Peach Bowl on Dec. 31, 2022), Michigan (Orange Bowl on Dec. 31, 2021) and Oklahoma (2018 Rose Bowl)
- (see No. 3)
- (see No. 3)
- Georgia vs. Auburn (2017 SEC Championship Game)
- Georgia vs. Clemson (2021)
- Georgia vs. Texas (2024)
- Georgia vs. Tennessee (2022)
- Georgia vs. Notre Dame (2017)