ATHENS, Ga. — The last time a Georgia head coach was entering his fifth year, a young Kirby Smart called up a reporter from his home in Baton Rouge, La., where he was moving out of the house he had lived in the past year. At LSU, Smart had worked briefly with Todd Monken, and now — in 2005 — Smart was getting ready to move back home to Athens, where he would live with former teammate Mike Bobo.
That reporter, then working for the Albany (Ga.) Herald and now writing this story for The Athletic, asked Smart why, given his defensive background, he was going to be coaching running backs.
“All it does is expand my horizons, and makes me able to say I coached on that side of the ball,” Smart said. “I always wanted to go over there and learn how they think. Every great defensive coach I’ve been around has been on that side of the ball at some point.”
Fifteen years later, Smart and Bobo had a chance to get the…
