Kirby Smart's amassed 78 wins in college football's last six full seasons, and his Georgia Bulldogs are 3-1 a month into the 2024 season as they host Auburn today between the hedges.
No surprise, then: Smart's stacking victories and the sport's highest salary in the process.
In details first shared by the Athens Banner-Herald via a government open records request, Smart's record-breaking 10-year, $130-million pact comes with perhaps the best buyout-clauses in the industry.
If Smart were to be fired without cause anytime between now and the end of the 2028 season, Georgia would owe Smart the entirety of his contract.
Even after that point, Smart still would net 85 cents on the dollar if terminated by his alma mater without cause; i.e., simply for losing or the school doing the seemingly unthinkable and deciding it wanted to go in a different direction.
Coming just short of a third-straight College Football Playoff championship last year after falling to Alabama and former mentor Nick Saban in the SEC Championship, Smart has led the Bulldogs to three of the last six CFPs and capped the 2023 season with a resounding beating of Florida State in the Orange Bowl.
It all laid the groundwork for this new deal, which featured a more than 20-percent raise: Smart's 2023 salary was $10.5 million before he formally agreed to his new $13 million rate in May.
With the potential for an additional $1.775 million in bonuses that would push Smart near $15 million in yearly earnings, a number previously only found for an NFL coach, the incentives break down as such:
A first-round game in the new CFP is worth $250,000; quarterfinals $500,000 and advancing to the semifinals $750,000.
A berth in the CFP title bout is a guaranteed $850,000 boost for Smart, and that number elevates to $1.25 million if Georgia wins the crown.
SEC incentives including $100,000 to reach the league bout or $200k for a win.
Should Smart elect to voluntarily exit Georgia, he would owe the school $5 million -- and only if he left before the start of the 2027 calendar year.