Color Houston head coach Dana Holgorsen as impressed with Kirby Smart and what he’s accomplished as the head coach of Georgia Bulldogs.
Holgorsen, who spoke at Smart’s annual coaches clinic back in March, came away in awe of what he saw. Speaking at the Big 12 Conference Media Days in Arlington, Texas, Holgorsen told ESPN he’s never seen anyone do it quite like Smart and the Bulldogs.
“What they’re doing in Athens, Georgia right now is on a whole other level. I’ve been to a lot of NFL camps. I’ve been to Alabama. I’ve been to a lot of places,” Holgorsen said. “Just the commitment from the athletic department, to the funding, to how they’re feeding them, to how they’re practicing, how they’re lifting, what their staff looks like; it’s big time. Clearly, it works, because they’re back-to-back national champs.”
Holgorsen was so impressed that he plans on taking some of the things he learned in Athens and applying them to his program at Houston.
“It was awesome for me, because I’ve been doing things one way for a long time. I’ve evolved and I’ve developed,” he said. “I wanted to look at their day-to-day facility, too, and they were gracious enough to open all their doors. I took a lot of ideas of what their building looks like and what the day-to-day for the student-athlete looks like. We’ve been designing our building for the last six months, so it changed a lot of our thought process going into the building that you’ll see in a few years.”