Two changes Georgia’s Kirby Smart is becoming accustomed to
For the past eight years, Kirby Smart has called defensive plays. As Alabama’s defensive coordinator, that fit into his game-day responsibility, being the one to send the signal out to his group of 11 on the football field.
He had great success doing this as Alabama won four national championships in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2015.
Now that he’s the head coach at Georgia, his role has certainly changed. No longer will Smart call plays on the sideline as he’s tasked with managing the entire team — on offense, defense and special teams.
But that isn’t an aspect he’s overly concerned about.
“I don’t think it’s a big adjustment,” Smart said, “because we had spring games, we had scrimmages — we had things like that at Alabama where we had two sides of the ball, so you had two guys calling it. It’s a new experience for me to be a head coach. I certainly don’t need the burden of calling the defense when I’m trying to oversee the whole entire thing.”
Defensive coordinator Mel Tucker, who was Alabama’s defensive backs coach in 2015, will call plays each Saturday with Smart having the utmost confidence in him. It helps Smart in that Tucker has vast experience as a coordinator in both college and the NFL ranks.
Before Smart hired Tucker has Georgia’s defensive coordinator, he was the co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State in 2004 and spent time as an NFL defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns (2008), Jacksonville Jaguars (2009-11) and the Chicago Bears (2013-14).
While Smart’s comfort zone through the years has been on the sideline calling defensive plays, there aren’t any worries about that side of the ball with the experience Tucker brings to the table.
“I’ll be more involved with the defense than I will with the offense but certainly, Mel has called it for a long time,” Smart said. “He called it in the NFL. That’s the plan going forward.”
No longer calling plays on the defensive side of the ball is one long-term change Smart has already gotten used to. A short-term adjustment, of late, has been to find use of the time he suddenly has found available in the month of May.
Right now, head coaches aren’t allowed to visit players. Assistants are, however, which is why various Georgia coaches are on the road during what’s called the evaluation period of NCAA recruiting. As a longtime assistant, Smart has long been accustomed to hitting the recruiting trail during this time of the year.
Smart has been doing his part to figure out what to do with the additional hours he has available.
“You gotta find something to do,” Smart said. “You watch opponents. You watch and evaluate recruits (on film). You try to get on the phone with the prospects. That’s all new to me, not being on the road. That’s been the hardest part. It has been a little slower.”
This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 11:52 AM with the headline "Two changes Georgia’s Kirby Smart is becoming accustomed to."