Should Kirby Smart make a play for Arkansas associate head coach/running back coach Jimmy Smith as the replacement for Dell McGee, it would be easy to see why.
Just check out the resume for the 43-year-old native of Darlington, South Carolina.
If you follow high school football, then you know Smith is the former head coach and athletic director at Cedar Grove, one of the premiere programs in the state, where he won state titles in 2016 and 2018.
However, it’s the results Smith has received along with the manner he runs his running back room that would make any school, potentially Georgia, take notice.
During an interview last year with sister site HawgBeat.com, Smith explained that philosophy.
It’s all about accountability.
"We hold them accountable from the beginning," Smith said in a story published last year by sister site HawgBeat.com. "We hold them accountable for the expectations we give them. You give them an expectation, and they meet it. If they don't meet it, they get a consequence. If they meet them, we give them the praise.”
Smith's salary at Arkansas is $360,000.
After a year at Georgia State, where he served as the running backs coach for the Panthers, that’s when Arkansas came calling.
Under his leadership, the Razorbacks’ run game enjoyed success not seen in a number of years.
Although Arkansas’ run game took a step back in 2023 (1,668 yards rushing), the Razorbacks enjoyed one of their better years, rushing for 3,077 yards (236.7 per game) to finish seventh nationally.
In 2021, Arkansas rushed for an average of 227.8 yards per contest.
Former Bulldog assistant and current Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman praised Smith for the work he’s done with the team’s running back room.
"You know, a good coach keeps his players out of my office," Pittman said last year. “Now, they come in to visit but it’s not, 'Hey, hey!' Jimmy does a great job. They respect him. Obviously, we haven’t gone in the portal there, so that means two things to me: We’re recruiting really well there, and two, there’s no conflicts in there."
