Best in college football: 10 years of Kirby Smart at Georgia - ESPN

ATHENS, Ga. — During a fundraising event this summer, a stranger approached Georgia football coach Kirby Smart to share a story about her daughter, who had recently graduated from the university.

While the woman's daughter was a student, she lived near the Bulldogs' football facility. Whenever the pressures of college stacked up — an important test, a long day of classes and studying — she found relief in an unlikely place: stepping outside to hear Smart screaming at his players through a microphone during practice.

«It made her feel so much better that she wasn't in football practice,» the woman said.

For the past decade, students jogging down Lumpkin Street or filling up their vehicles at a nearby gas station have heard the familiar shouts of Smart calling out a player who made a mistake or was loafing in practice.

With the No. 5 Bulldogs preparing to host No. 17 Alabama in another SEC heavyweight bout at Sanford Stadium on Saturday (7:30 p.m ET, ABC), Smart figures to be louder than ever this week.

It's the only volume Smart has known during his 10-year tenure as his alma mater's coach, in which he has guided the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championships (2021-22), three SEC titles and four College Football Playoff appearances.

«In one sense, it's like it has flown by,» said Smart, who played defensive back at Georgia from 1995 to '98. «But in another sense, it feels like an eternity. With everything that has transpired the last few years, just in terms of the sport, transfer portal, NIL, everything, it almost seems longer. It seems like the last three or four years have been an eternity because of the changes.»

Only Kentucky's Mark Stoops, in his 13th season with the Wildcats, has a longer tenure in the SEC.