{"id":1184247,"date":"2026-05-06T05:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/?p=1184247"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:45:17","slug":"kirby-smart-delivers-bold-take-on-alabama-teams-he-coached","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/kirby-smart-delivers-bold-take-on-alabama-teams-he-coached\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirby Smart Delivers Bold Take on Alabama Teams He Coached"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since he\u2019s left Tuscaloosa,\u00a0Kirby Smart\u00a0has established himself as arguably the best coach in the nation over the last decade \u2014 not\u00a0including Nick Saban\u00a0\u2014 turning the Georgia Bulldogs back into a national powerhouse.<\/p>\n<p>With two national titles of his own and having one of the most feared teams in the nation yearly, Smart knows what quality football looks like. That does not mean he\u2019s forgotten just how dominant his Alabama teams were when he served as defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n<p>Smart made an appearance on \u201cThe Next Round\u201d from the\u00a0Regions Tradition this week, and he said that with the way college football has changed over the years in terms of ability to stack depth, the best Tide teams of the 2010s would have had their way with the best teams today.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8220;Our best Alabama teams &#8211; I&#8217;m gonna go 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 &#8211; would beat the DOG out of all these teams right now.&#8221; &#8211; Kirby Smart on how different roster depth is now vs. a few years ago <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2pRUYk7NoG\">pic.twitter.com\/2pRUYk7NoG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NextRoundLive\/status\/2049845855268507838?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 30, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur best Alabama teams, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, would be the dog out of all these teams right now,\u201d Smart said when asked about how much depth has changed over time. \u201cThey could practice different and they were deeper. The game has not changed that much from 2012 to 2025, but the roster has and those teams would Clubber Lange somebody. They would physically beat you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI look at our team now and think \u2018Oh man, Oh God, we don\u2019t have the depth, we\u2019re not as good as we were, we\u2019re not gonna be able to go out and win the SEC\u2019 and it\u2019s just relative\u2026there\u2019s just not as much talent acquisition and talent on a team to be able to develop and grow. I\u2019m playing younger players. I got kids that never would have played at Georgia when I got there or at Alabama that are having to play now because you don\u2019t have enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly, Smart is right about the way NIL and the transfer portal have distributed the talent across college football, which most fans are on board with.<\/p>\n<p>As for the teams at the height of the Saban era, we may never see domination at that level again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Since he\u2019s left Tuscaloosa,\u00a0Kirby Smart\u00a0has established himself as arguably the best coach in the nation over the last decade \u2014 not\u00a0including Nick Saban\u00a0\u2014 turning the <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/kirby-smart-delivers-bold-take-on-alabama-teams-he-coached\/\" title=\"Kirby Smart Delivers Bold Take on Alabama Teams He Coached\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4874,"featured_media":1184248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,91,147],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1184247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crimson-tide-bama-tide","8":"category-alabama","9":"category-featured-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9532604180051_uga_spring_game.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1184249,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184247\/revisions\/1184249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1184248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}