Before Kirby Smart was a two-time national champion at Georgia or even Nick Saban’s right-hand man at Alabama, he was a defensive backs coach under Saban at LSU in 2004.
It was the first big break in the industry for Smart, who was previously a graduate assistant at Florida State. But it seems that initial first interview for the job at LSU didn’t go without incident.
ESPN recently released a series of untold stories regarding Saban, and one regarded how Smart, when going for the job at LSU, accidentally got the Tigers’ whole staff in trouble during a visit to Saban’s home.
“I go on the interview, and I’m young and unassuming, and there are all these stories out there that if Miss Terry [Saban’s wife] invites you to the house for dinner, she had to give you the OK. And if you didn’t get the OK, then you weren’t going to get the job.”
Lance Thompson was leaving LSU to take the UCF defensive coordinator’s job. Smart remembers Thompson, who worked under Saban two different times, telling Smart in passing: “Working for Nick is like dog years. Every year feels like seven.”