Nick Saban is viewed by many as having GOAT status among college football coaches.
The Alabama coach has won seven national championships during his career, but sees what Kirby Smart has done with Georgia football in his eight seasons as pretty special itself.
Smart served as defensive coordinator under Saban from 2008-15 after being promoted after one season.
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"I knew he'd be an outstanding head coach someday, but it's phenomenal what he's been able to accomplish at Georgia," Saban said Sunday evening during an SEC teleconference for Saturday's league championship game between No. 1 Georgia and No. 8 Alabama. "To win as many games in a row and to win a couple of (national) championships and have another chance to do it again a third time, I mean it's phenomenal to win however many games—I don't even know how many—29, I don't even know for sure how many games they've won in a row."
Saban's Alabama teams won 26 in a row in 2015 and 2016.
Smart and Georgia broke the SEC record Saturday night with a 31-23 win at Georgia Tech with a 29thstraight win, beating the 28 of Alabama teams under Bear Bryant from 1978-80 and Gene Stallings from 1991-93.
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"It's hard to sustain," Saban said. "He's done a phenomenal job of recruiting and developing players in the program and I think the result bears that out."
Smart and Georgia enter the SEC championship having won 45 of their last 46 games.
Alabama is 11-1 and like Georgia finished 8-0 in the SEC.
This is the second time in SEC Championship game history that both teams meet after going unbeaten in conference play. The other was in 2009 when Alabama played Florida .
Saban is seeking his ninth SEC championship with Alabama.
"People don't really understand how hard it is to be consistently really good, consistently great," Smart said. "He's accomplished that at the highest level to me. Our conference is certainly really tough and hard. He's done it for every year he's been there besides maybe the first. He's had really successful seasons. He's a really good leader. He's good at motivating. I think he's kind of evolved with the times in the way he goes about things."
Saban and college coaches have a lot more on their plate these days then when Smart was there.
"One minute you're working on special teams, the next minute you're chasing guys, dealing with the portal, dealing with transfers, NIL," Smart said. "His ability to compartmentalize and work at the task at hand was always incredible to me. It's something that I try to do. I don't know that I do it as well as he does when it comes to being able to focus on the task at hand and not get distracted on the little things."
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Nick Saban on Georgia football coach Kirby Smart's run of success
