ESPN’s latest look at the best coaches in college football put Georgia’s Kirby Smart right near the top, but not quite at No. 1.
The panel crowned Indiana’s Curt Cignetti as the sport’s best coach with 94 total points, and Smart landed just behind him. Of the 10 voters, four picked Smart first, while Cignetti collected five first-place votes. ESPN’s ranking comes with Cignetti fresh off leading Indiana to a national championship last season, while Georgia’s recent College Football Playoff results may have nudged Smart a step lower in the eyes of the panel.
Even so, Smart’s résumé still reads like the standard everyone else is chasing. ESPN’s Max Olsen pointed to the consistency Georgia has sustained under Smart, noting how the Bulldogs have stayed elite even as the expanded CFP, the transfer portal and NIL have made the job harder.
“The argument for Smart is his program remains the gold standard for elite, sustained success even as the expanded CFP, the portal and NIL have in many ways made his job tougher,” ESPN’s Max Olsen said. “He has maintained an incredibly high standard at Georgia with no bad years, finishing in the top seven of the AP poll in nine consecutive seasons, with eight trips to the SEC title game.
If you exclude the COVID year, Smart is averaging 12.6 wins over his last eight full seasons at Georgia. His SEC record is a ridiculous 40-5 since 2021.”
Smart is heading into his 11th season in Athens this fall, and Georgia is again expected to sit among the nation’s top teams. The Bulldogs also bring back a number of experienced defenders, and that side of the ball figures to be the team’s identity again in 2026.
ESPN’s Greg McElroy highlighted that returning production when discussing Georgia on the Always College Football Podcast.
“You look at the returning productionthat’s back across the board, a defense that ranks in the top five nationally in returning production,” ESPN’s Greg McElroy said on the Always College Football Podcast. “And when you watch Georgia, you see the same thing every year, right? They run it, they stop the run, they don’t beat themselves, and they’re super physical.”
Smart has never shied away from the expectations that come with coaching Georgia. He knows the Bulldogs have not played their best football in each of the last two College Football Playoffs.
Georgia’s last CFP win came in the 2022 season, when it beat TCU in the national championship game. Since then, the Bulldogs have lost to Notre Dame and Ole Miss in the previous two seasons, even while winning the SEC title both times.
For Smart and Georgia, another SEC championship alone won’t be enough. If the Bulldogs are going to keep their place as the sport’s gold standard, the next step has to be another national title. And Smart believes this group has a chance to get there.
“We had a good spring. Got some guys coming back,” Smart said in April.
“Got some youthful spots that I worry about, but at the end of the day, you know, that’s what they pay you to do as a coach. All summer we’re going to work with these guys.
We’re going to find things they can do and try to find an advantage we can put them in in matchups.”
In Other News...
Georgia Faces A Growing SEC Debate It Cant Ignore
As more SEC schools keep leaning into entertainment districts as a way to reshape the fan experience and open new revenue streams, Georgia is still taking a more cautious path. Athletic director Josh Brooks said the university does not have an immediate plan for a district of its own, largely because of campus space limitations, but he also left the door open to land-use possibilities that could eventually change the conversation.
For now, the focus is on making better use of what already exists. Brooks pointed to Sanford Stadium, Stegeman Coliseum and Foley Field as venues that could help bring in more non-sports events, part of a broader effort to generate revenue without rushing into a major development project. The bigger question is whether Georgia can keep pace with the SECs latest trend while waiting for the right opportunity to emerge south of campus. [Read more 🡒]
Georgia Lands 5th In ESPNs Most Debated Preseason Ranking
ESPNs Football Power Index always draws attention when the preseason version drops, and Georgia is once again near the top of the conversation. The system leans on a mix of unit efficiency, opponent adjustments, prior-year results, recruiting, home-field and travel factors, then runs thousands of season simulations to sort out the order, which is part of why the Bulldogs keep showing up in the national picture before a snap is played.
Still, the bigger lesson from recent preseason FPI releases is that the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. Recent SEC-heavy examples have shown how often these early rankings miss the mark, with plenty of teams that started high eventually finishing nowhere near it, so Georgias place in the mix is more a reminder of its reputation than a guarantee of how the season will unfold. [Read more 🡒]
Georgia Just Reopened A Frustrating Future Schedule Debate
Georgias 2028 football schedule just got a little more interesting after Florida A&M and the Bulldogs mutually canceled their planned Sept. 9 game at Sanford Stadium. The date is now open, and it lands on a slate that already looks packed with 11 Power 4 opponents, a nine-game SEC schedule and neutral-site matchups against Florida State and Florida.
So the real question is less about whether Georgia will fill the spot than what kind of game it wants there. The expectation is that the Bulldogs will add another home opponent that does not raise the degree of difficulty much, a familiar kind of scheduling move for a program that has long balanced a brutal conference grind with a softer nonleague date or two. Kirby Smart has also made clear before that he knows when a matchup is lopsided, which is part of why this latest opening has reopened a debate Georgia fans know well. [Read more 🡒]