ATHENS — Kirby Smart makes it a point to keep Georgia football a step ahead, but even the Bulldogs head coach needs an assist now and then.

Especially when it comes to something that would properly honor his incredible achievements.

Smart is undisputedly the most successful head coach in Georgia football history, and a former Georgia graduate, All-SEC academic and football honoree and team captain.

Steve Spurrier has a statue. Nick Saban has a statue. Even former TCU coach Gary Patterson has a statue. Even former Missouri coach Don Faurot (101-79-10 record) has a statue.

So build the Kirby statue. Put it under the Sanford Stadium scoreboard.

And them simply move the statue of pure class Vince Dooley — the only outside sports statue of campus — to that wonderfully large concourse where fans and students get their picture taken.

But don’t stop there, because Georgia produced the greatest college football player of all-time, and how Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker doesn’t have a permanent statue yet is sheer politics.

There’s only been one other UGA Heisman Trophy winner, and Frank Sinkwich IV deserves a trophy, too.

So there’s your formula: Statues for national championship coaches and Heisman Trophy winners.

If that’s not enough, how about honoring Nagurski Trophy winners — the Defensive Heisman — by adding Champ Bailey to the list?

But above all else, find way to honor the current Georgia football head coach, Lord knows the national media won’t.

Incredibly, Smart has not won a national coach of the year award since 2017 when he won the George Munger National Coach of the Year Trophy.

For the record, the Munger Trophy was once the Joe Paterno Award, and that’s just not good enough for a two-time national championship coach who won an SEC-record 29-straight games in the greatest era of parity and hasn’t lost a regular season game the past three seasons.