Kirby Smart in entering his 10th season as head football coach at Georgia, but he drew on his nine seasons on the Alabama staff when talking about how the game has changed in recent years.

Making his annual appearance at SEC Media Days on Tuesday in Atlanta, Smart was asked about who on his team was showing the most “fire, passion and energy” as the 2025 season approaches. Smart — who was part of three national championship teams at Alabama and has won two titles at Georgia — said that remains to be determined, but had no problem describing some of the all-time greats in that regard he’d been around during his career.

“The culture in college football is slowly changing,” Smart said. “You’ve got to remember, I was part of a 9-year program and a 9-year run (at Alabama) that was one of the greatest ever in college football, OK? And now I’m at a place that’s doing it right and competing on a really high level.

“I’ve seen what it looks like to have fire, passion, and energy, and I’ve seen guys that were really hungry and I go back to (Alabama’s) Dont’a Hightower, Rolando McClain, Julio Jones and Trent Richardson and Mark Ingram all the way to (Georgia’s) Roquan Smith to Nolan Smith, to Jordan Davis, to George Pickens, to Jake Fromm … D’Andre Swift. You know what they had? They had a love for the game and fire, passion, and energy. That’s not the same as it used to be.”

So why is it different now? Easy, Smart said — players have become too “comfortable” in the NIL era, where many have already been “paid” rather than working to get a big-time NFL contract.

“You can say what you want, but there’s people more in college football today, especially in the SEC, that are comfortable with where they are,” Smart said. “’This is a pretty good life. I’m earning $200k a year. I’m very comfortable.’ And you don’t reach your goals being comfortable. You don’t attain great success. None of those people I mentioned before were ever comfortable. They were aiming at something. They had a goal; they wanted to go achieve it.

“What you see now is, where’s the drive and energy and enthusiasm? Well, we want people that have it. We’re going to seek it; we’re going to try to go find it. And if we can just do that 1% better than everybody else, it gives us an opportunity to be ahead we’re going to go.”