A biography for Kirby Smarthasn’t been written yet.
“It's hard to say that it gets any better to be at your alma mater and run a major college football program.”
“My goal is to outwork everybody in recruiting, sign the best players in the state, and turn these guys into the best team we can.”
“Every college coach I talk to won't say it on record, but everyone's thinking, 'Should I go to the league?' Because you don't have the same requirements. It's different. The hours are different.”
“The ultimate deal is: Are you winning and are you successful? The guys who've done that have had opportunities.”
“My family's so happy in Tuscaloosa. My wife loves it.”
“There's a lot of people who think in order to be a good head coach, you've got to be a head coach at a smaller school.”
“I might not have a conference championship or a national championship as a head coach, but I had the recruiting factor.”
“A lot of people have said, 'Why not take a smaller school head job?' I honestly feel my growth was better being in a large program, being around Coach Saban, and learning how to manage a lot of the tough situations you deal with in the media.”
“I don't recruit against Nick Saban. I recruit for the University of Georgia.”
“It never stops. It's 365 recruiting. That cell phone you've got, these smartphones are the death of college coaching.”
“At the end of the day, if you're not beating the teams on the road recruiting that you have to beat on the field, then you're probably not going to win many championships.”
“Every kid I've been around as a football player, they want their coaches to make them better as men and as players.”
“If you chart SEC champions over a 20-year period, the one consistent thing to me is you're not going to win if you don't have a quarterback. It's too critical of a position. He decides something every play.”
“I'm a big believer in your offensive limitations come from your quarterback.”
“The amount of pressure that I've put on myself as a defensive coordinator for the last 10, 11 years, I really believe there's a lot more decisions that go into that position than the head coach.”
“When your mom and dad read the paper, they like to know their sons are on the roster.”
“Change is uncomfortable.”
“What you have success with, you feel comfortable with, you always rely on that a little bit.”
“It's very important that we don't make the same mistakes twice. That's a big part of improvement.”
“Every day I pull into that parking spot that says 'Head Football Coach,' I get out of my car and pinch myself sometimes, just to make sure it's real, sort of like, 'Is this really happening?'”