Kirby Smart can reach an important milestone as a coach with the victory over Texas

Georgia football has been spoiled since Kirby Smart became the program’s head coach in December 2015. Since he became head coach, we have seen countless great accomplishments and historic moments at Georgia.

Playoff wins, SEC championships and two national championships are obviously the highlights of his career so far. And while a win at No. 1 Texas on Saturday would certainly be a highlight of his entire tenure, there’s another reason why this win would go down as one of the greatest moments of his coaching career at Georgia.

That’s right, a win against Texas on Saturday would be the 100th of Smart’s career. 100 wins is a significant milestone in any coach’s career simply because of how difficult it is and how long it takes to get there.

First of all, it’s fair to say that Georgia has been an elite program for almost all of Smart’s time at Georgia. Six of Smart’s eight completed seasons at Georgia resulted in at least 11 wins. And the two that didn’t make it, Georgia still won eight games (which is a lot for some programs). So despite all of this success, Smart still needs nine seasons to reach 100 wins.

Most coaches lose their jobs or move on to a new opportunity within nine years, and those who stay that long don’t have nearly as much success as Smart. As a result, coaches simply don’t stay at their jobs long enough and don’t have the sustained success that Smart needed to achieve that success.

Obviously Smart will reach that milestone this year even if he loses to Texas on Saturday, likely with his 100th the following game against Florida. While it would be fun to reach this milestone against a rival, I think doing it on the road against the No. 1 team in the country would be the most fitting result.

Beating Florida this season is like any other win, the Gators aren’t good this year so it really won’t be that exciting. But beating the country’s top team when Georgia is an underdog for the first time since 2021? This sounds like the perfect game to me to reach this milestone.

Fun fact: Smart will become the fourth Georgia head coach to reach 100 wins once he achieves this achievement. He will join Vince Dooley (201 wins), Mark Richt (145 wins) and Wally Butts (140 wins) in reaching that mark in Georgia.