ATHENS — Kirby Smart sits atop college football as the sport’s top active coach, and on Thursday the University of Georgia made sure he was paid like it.

Smart received a two-year contract extension through 2033 with an annual, nation-high salary of $13 million — dwarfing the initial annual salary of $3.75 million he agreed to when he took over the Bulldogs’ program in 2016.

Smart has seen to it that Georgia, long considered a sleeping giant with its rich, in-state talent, has grown into the dominant force most everyone knew it was capable of being.

“I want more than relevance, I want dominance,” Smart recently said, “and we’ve been more dominant in the last three years.”

Here are three more reasons Smart is worthy of being the nation’s highest paid collegiate coach:

The Future

Smart is only 48 years old and has plenty of available mileage left in his career should he choose to stay coaching at the collegiate level.

Georgia has more momentum than any program in the nation with Nick Saban’s departure from SEC champ Alabama and defending national champ Michigan having lost its head coach to the NFL.

Smart is arguably the most adept coach in the nation when it comes to roster management, as Georgia has demonstrated great buy-in while managing to retain its top talent while bringing in difference-making talent.

Coaching acumen

Georgia’s great talent level is such that Smart has gotten passed over for national coach of the year awards because he is “supposed to win,” never mind that UGA’s 29-game win streak and three consecutive 8-0 league seasons was unprecedented in SEC history.

Smart has won 20 consecutive games when UGA has more than one week to prepare, and there are no active college head coaches who have beaten Smart over the past five seasons.

Current Florida Atlantic coach and former Texas coach Tom Herman is the most recent active coach to beat Smart — and do it when UGA had more than a week to prepare — accomplishing that feat after the 2018 season in the Sugar Bowl.

The Program

Smart has built the Georgia program in his image, taking his experiences coaching under Saban, Mark Richt and Bobby Bowden, along with what he learned as son of high school coach Sonny Smart and All-SEC player under Ray Goff and Jim Donnan,

The Bulldogs have an elite approach to daily business captured perfectly by linebacker Jalon Walker, who said “Our goal here is to make history every day.”

The intensity and competition level at Georgia practices has led to high level execution on Saturdays and future pay days on Sundays for players.