Sad News: Kirby Paul Smart after happy anniversary’ agree to move for free ag…..

With apologies to Lou Gehrig’s spirit, University of Georgia football coach Kirby Smart is the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

So much for old news.

Here’s the latest: Kirby Paul Smart is now the undisputed champion of his profession, and he has the ability to knock the crimson and white out of Alabama just about anytime he pleases.

Just like that, the bogeyman during Kirby’s eight years of goodness (and often greatness) with the Bulldogs is gone.

He’s outta here.

He’s done since Saban and “1-5” retired out of nowhere Wednesday after seven national championships, including six at Alabama during the past 17 years.

Saban was the primary reason the Crimson Tide ranked fourth on Forbes’ 2019 list among college football programs with a three-year average revenue before the pandemic of $134 million.

Pop Warner. Knute Rockne. Frank Leahy. Amos Alonzo Stagg. Bud Wilkinson. Woody Hayes. Barry Switzer. John McKay. Tom Osborne. Bobby Bowden. Neither of those college football coaching legends nor Alabama’s other eternal god named Bear Bryant surpassed Saban in greatness for a career.

Which meant Smart wasn’t alone among his peers getting spooked by Saban, owner of a 31-3 record against his former assistant coaches. It’s just that Smart remained Saban’s most prominent and persistent target.

Ding dong. The bogeyman is dead.

Which old bogeyman?

The Saban bogeyman.

And, boy, did Saban rattle around Smart’s head since Saban served as his old boss for nearly a dozen years. That included one season at LSU, one with the Miami Dolphins and eight at Alabama, where Smart was the Crimson Tide’s defensive coordinator for four of those Saban-led national titles.

Alabama officials wanted Smart on Saban’s staff forever. So, during the summer of 2015, they jumped Smart into a tie for the highest-paid assistant coach in the sport with a $150,000 raise to $1.5 million.

Georgia officials did better than that for their alumnus who was an All-SEC defensive back for the Bulldogs during the late 1990s. They gave him $3.75 million for the 2016 season, and they also made him their head coach.

Smart didn’t disappoint.

On that same 2019 list for Forbes’ most valuable college football program, Smart had the Bulldogs so popular by then that they ranked seventh with a three-year average revenue before the pandemic of $125 million.

Georgia school officials even unleashed a Kirby-inspired building spree. By the fall of 2021, they had written checks totaling $175 million for more than 350,000 square feet of football properties since his arrival.

Such things happen when you go from decades as only consistently better than mediocre since winning the 1980 national championship with Herschel Walker in your huddle to sitting among national royalty in recruiting and victories with Kirby on your sidelines.

Let’s start with recruiting.

Nobody was close to Saban and Alabama for years in that department, but before long, Kirby and Georgia were.

Better yet, the Bulldogs finished with the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class for 2024 after signing the No. 1 cornerback, the No. 1 linebacker and the No. 1 punter as well as the No. 1 player in the states of New Jersey, Tennessee and Virginia.

Alabama was a consensus No. 2 overall.

There also was this: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote during Kirby’s nine recruiting classes at Georgia, Alabama was No. 1 five times and No. 2 three times while the Bulldogs were No. 1 three times with two No. 2 finishes.

The paper added it was the eighth time in the last nine years either Georgia or Alabama grabbed the nation’s No. 1 class, and it was the fourth time they both finished first and second.

With no Saban, Smart is now peerless as a recruiter.

The same goes for as a winner.

Kirby’s Alabama-like recruiting turned Georgia into the game’s most dominant program after capturing two consecutive national championships before this season. Not only that, but the 2023 Bulldogs just missed returning to the College Football Playoff (CFP) after they sealed a 13-1 campaign with a 63-3 slashing of previously unbeaten Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

Georgia’s only loss this past season?

To Saban, of course.

Well . .

Now he is.

As for the past, 1-5?

That was Smart’s record against Alabama coach Nick Saban, and that was ridiculous since folks held their breath during Georgia-Alabama games to see how Smart’s Bulldogs would lose this time.

That was in early December during the SEC Championship Game, which was an unofficial home game for the Bulldogs playing Alabama in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, located 71 miles from Sanford Stadium in Athens.

Smart’s Georgia teams dropped two other SEC Championship Games and a national championship game to Saban’s Alabama teams at the same location.

The fifth loss for Smart against Saban happened in Tuscaloosa, and the only victory occurred in Indianapolis, where the Bulldogs won the first of their consecutive national championships following the 2021 season.

But was that a fluke?

You have to ask, because here’s what happened the next time the 48-year-old Smart faced the 72-year-old Saban: Youth wasn’t served again.

Alabama was chosen by the 2023 CFP selection committee over Georgia as one of its four teams after Saban and the Tide survived the Bulldogs during that SEC Championship Game in December.

That said, Georgia and Alabama will play in September when the Bulldogs travel to Tuscaloosa for a regular-season game, but this time, with much of the world returning to watch, Saban won’t be on the sidelines.