With the Bulldogs’ victory over No. 7 Auburn on Saturday night, Kirby Smart improved his record against AP (Associated Press) top 10 opposition to 8-4 (.667). The Georgia head coach’s Top-10 record is actually 9-4 according to UGA, which recognizes the Bulldogs’ 2018 win over Kentucky as a top-10 result.* Nonetheless, for the sake of comparison, UGASports solely measured AP Top-10 results for the following analysis.

In addition, with the victory over the Tigers, Georgia improved its all-time record against top 10 foes in the AP Poll (begun in 1936) to 44-75-3 (.373). Those numbers are actually rather decent, likely ranking in major-college football’s top 15 of all time—and rendering Smart’s 8-4 mark that much more impressive.

The following table presents AP top 10 records for Georgia’s last seven major coaching regimes. Times change; we're mindful that Wally Butts coached more than 230 games, yet only had 19 results versus top 10 foes. We were curious and added a column showing the coaches' percentage of games against top 10 foes. What resulted was the notion that Smart has not only been the most successful Georgia head coach versus these elite opponents; he's done so facing top-tier opposition with more frequency (as in, more than two-and-half times the frequency of Coach Butts).

Notably, Smart's record versus top 10 foes is not only the best of all Georgia coaches, but it's the Bulldogs' best run in history, given at least 10 results against Top-10 opponents. The second-best run is when Richt started his career 7-4 versus the Top-10 from 2001-2007—only to falter, losing nine of his next 10 until defeating No. 3 Florida in 2012.

Another noteworthy losing run for Georgia resulted from 1947 until the latter part of Vince Dooley's initial season (1964), when the Bulldogs won just one of 20 against the top 10. Extraordinarily, from there, beginning with the Florida game in 1964, Dooley promptly won six in a row versus top 10 opposition. Also, beginning with a loss at No. 8 Clemson in 1987 and until Georgia's upset over No. 6 Florida a decade later, the Bulldogs were a lowly 1-16-1 against the top 10.

The next table compares Smart to the rest of the SEC, or, at least, the conference's current head coaches who've had at least 10 results versus top 10 opposition in their careers:

Worthy of mention: Besides Smart, Saban, and Orgeron in the SEC, only two other current head coaches in the entire FBS currently have career winning records versus top 10 teams: Clemson's Dabo Swinney (14-7) and Stanford's David Shaw (10-9).

Finally, how does Smart's top 10 record compare with those of the greatest coaches in SEC history? Besides the aforementioned Vince Dooley and Nick Saban (and you could probably even throw Mark Richt in there), we came up with arguably the SEC's greatest coaches during the AP Poll era who, at least, spent a good portion of their careers in the conference.

Comparatively speaking, and once again, Smart's 8-4 mark when facing top 10 opponents would rank at or near the top:

* Although the Wildcats were ranked No. 11 in the AP and No. 12 in the Coaches at the time, they were No. 9 in the College Football Playoff poll entering their game versus Georgia—and, therefore, a “top 10” opponent according to UGA.