Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
McElwain and Smart know each other well
GAINESVILLE — In February 2008, Jim McElwain arrived in Alabama to help coach Nick Saban get the Crimson Tide back on track.
The welcoming committee included Kirby Smart, age 31 at the time and a first-time Football Bowl Subdivision defensive coordinator.
During the next four years, Smart would help push McElwain and his offense to perform at a national championship level. Along the way, the two became friends, family even.
“I didn’t know anything about him before I got there,” McElwain recalled Monday. “And yet he was one of the first guys to welcome me in the door, which tells you what kind of guy he is. When you work together like that in an environment like that, you get to know each other pretty well. Our wives know each other.
“I mean, it becomes a family.”
On Saturday, the two men will reunite for the first time as head coaches when McElwain’s Florida Gators meet Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs in Jacksonville. It will seem like old times for two coaches who famously and fiercely squared off during Alabama practices.
With McElwain and Smart as coordinators 2008-11, Alabama was 48-6 and won two national titles.
McElwain parlayed the success into his first head coaching job at Colorado State University. Smart would remain for four more seasons and 50 wins, including two more national titles, before he landed his dream job at alma mater Georgia.
McElwain said it was clear that Smart was headcoaching material.
“There’s no doubt about it,” McElwain said. “He had a bunch of opportunities along the way, obviously. I think he did a great job of being patient and taking the one that he had his eyes on.”
Smart, 40, was a fouryear letterman at Georgia and a first-team All-SEC selection as a senior defensive back in 1998. His 13 career interceptions rank fourth all time for the Bulldogs.
Smart also was a fourtime member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll, earning a degree in finance.
“This will be a great chess match,” McElwain said.
Smart will have a good deal of familiarity with the Gators.
Besides four seasons with McElwain, Smart worked three seasons with UF defensive line coach Chris Rumph, two with offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier and one with quarterback Luke Del Rio, an Alabama walk-on in 2013.
Smart said he is keenly aware of McElwain’s and Nussmeier’s propensity for using shifts and motions — “trying to confuse people with eye candy,” Smart called it.
Yet Smart generally does not put much stock into previous relationships influencing a game’s outcome.
“I don’t know that it does provide advantage, because for every advantage I might have, they have the same,” he said. “I think you can overthink these things.
Smart’s Bulldogs have not made enough plays lately.
Georgia (4-3, 2-3 SEC) enters the matchup with No. 14 Florida (5-1, 3-1) having dropped three of four games — or the same number of combined losses Smart endured during his final two seasons at Alabama.
“We’ll get together and laugh about some stories, and that’s always fun,” McElwain said. “And yet it doesn’t matter. When you kind of blow the whistle, it’s your guys against their guys and see who comes out.”