There is little question about Georgia’s place in the sport of college football right now.

And Kirby Smart is the biggest reason for that belief. Smart led Georgia to back-to-back national championships and has guided the Bulldogs to a 42-2 record over the past three seasons.

Smart is now entering his ninth season as Georgia’s head coach. And with Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh both moving on, Smart steps into the title as the top head coach in the sport.

ESPN’s group of 10 analysts all voted Smart as the No. 1 coach in college football, sliding him in ahead of Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer as the No. 2 coach.

“The Bulldogs won an SEC-record 29 straight games before losing to Alabama last season in the SEC championship game,” ESPN’s Chris Low wrote. “In eight seasons at Georgia, Smart has built a juggernaut in terms of evaluating, recruiting and developing great players. He has produced 55 NFL draft picks, including 15 first-rounders, and could have as many as 10 more players selected in the upcoming draft.

“Smart is unbeaten against all active coaches over the past five seasons.”

Since becoming Georgia’s head coach in 2016, Smart is 94-16. Five of those losses came in his first season in Athens.

Smart continues to sign elite recruiting classes, as he brought in the No. 1 recruiting class for the 2024 cycle. He’s turned Georgia into an NFL factory, with the Bulldogs potentially putting another 10 players in the 2024 NFL Draft.

As for the team on the field for the 2024 season, the Bulldogs are seen as one of the top teams in the sport. The Bulldogs return quarterback Carson Beck and a host of contributors, poised to get back to playing for national championships after not doing so in the 2023 season.

Georgia held its first scrimmage this past Saturday and will have another on Saturday. It will be another chance for Smart to evaluate his team’s potential.

“There’s just a lot of new people in the organization, whether it’s players new, midyears new, portal guys new, coaches new,” Smart said. “It was not as clean as most of our first scrimmages. Some guys did well, some guys didn’t do too well. A lot of anxiety for the midyears. From scrimmage one to scrimmage two starting really yesterday but today, we’re moving toward how much can we improve from scrimmage one to scrimmage two.

“You usually see immense improvement in guys that just got here because they’re not as nervous, it was their first practice in the stadium. So I’m hoping to see some of that growth this week and into Saturday.”

Georgia and college football have plenty of change to deal with in the coming year. The 2024 season will be the first with a 12-team playoff and the SEC will be more difficult with Texas and Oklahoma joining the league.

Consider that in 2024, Smart will go head-to-head against the No. 2, No. 4 (Dabo Swinney), No. 7 (Steve Sarkisian), and No. 8 (Lane Kiffin) ranked coaches per ESPN. And none of those games will be played in Sanford Stadium.

But if there is any coach who is going to have their team prepared for a new world order, Smart seems as good a bet as any given his success at Georgia.

The Bulldogs conclude spring practice on April 13, when they host G-Day. The final scrimmage is set for a 1 p.m. start time, airing on SEC Network+.