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Where Kirby Smart could land among first-year Georgia football coaches
By John Hollis
Published:
First-year University of Georgia football coach Kirby Smart could do things this fall that none of his recent predecessors accomplished.
No Bulldogs coach in the modern era has won more than eight games in his inaugural season, and only the legendary Vince Dooley managed to win a bowl game in his first season. Most first-year Georgia coaches struggled to varying degrees while becoming acclimated to their new surroundings.
Smart, who succeeded Mark Richt in December, just might change that.
First-year records of Georgia football coaches in past 100 years
2001: Mark Richt: 8-4
1996: Jim Donnan: 5-6
1989: Ray Goff: 6-6
1964: Vince Dooley: 7-3-1
1961: Johnny Griffith: 3-7
1939: Wallace Butts: 5-6
1938: Joel Hunt: 5-4-1
1928: Harry Mehre: 4-5
1923: George Woodruff: 5-3-1
1920: H.J. Stegeman: 8-0-1 (*won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association Championship)
Source: College Football Reference
Smart inherits a Dawgs team that is deep in overall talent, although questions remain at quarterback and tailback. Assuming Smart can smoothly ingratiate blue-chip freshman quarterback Jacob Eason into the mix and gets a healthy Nick Chubb back at tailback, there’s no reason Georgia can’t win 10 or more games and contend for the school’s first SEC Championship since 2005.
Dooley, the school’s all-time winningest coach with 201 career wins from 1964-1988, went 3-2 in the SEC and 7-3-1 overall in his first year, capped by a 7-0 Sun Bowl win over Texas Tech.
Richt (below) set the regular season standard for wins for new Georgia coaches in 2001, going 5-3 in the conference and 8-4 overall before falling to Boston College in the Music City Bowl.
It would be somewhat surprising if Smart didn’t surpass that total this season.
The SEC East is no longer the unquestioned King of the Hill it once was — it hasn’t produced the SEC champion since 2008 — meaning UGA will have an easier hill to climb than in years past to claim the SEC East mantle for the first time since 2012.
Barring something unforeseen happening, Georgia figures to be favored in perhaps 10 of its 12 regular season games. A Sept. 24 road date at Ole Miss and an Oct. 1 home game against Tennessee, the trendy preseason pick to win the SEC East, might be the only contests in which the Dawgs enter as the underdogs.
Of course, that doesn’t mean much if Smart’s team doesn’t come to play each week. Georgia was heavily favored in each of the past two meetings in Jacksonville against rival Florida only to lose both games, including last season’s 27-3 stinker that opened the door for Richt’s departure.
Neither of Smart’s two previous predecessors – Richt nor Jim Donnan (1996) – beat the hated Gators in their first season.
H.J. Stegeman enjoyed the most successful inaugural coaching in school annals, going 8-0-1 in 1920 to win the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association Championship. Georgia joined the SEC in 1932.
John Hollis is a contributing writer for Saturday Down South. He covers Georgia and Florida.
