Kirby Smart has built his seventh coaching staff in Athens.

His previous staffs featured future head coaches and decades of coaching experience. This year's edition, on the other hand, had to replace four faces who are gone from the national championship staff of 2021.

Still, Smart feels this year's coaching staff is unlike any other.

"Our staff is the best it's ever been," Smart said.

The four new additions to the staff reside equally on both sides of the ball. Bryan McClendon (receivers) and Stacy Searels (offensive line) joined the offensive staff, while Chidera Uzo-Diribe (outside linebackers) and Fran Brown (defensive backs) came in on the defensive side.

According to Smart, the success lies with each coach accepting his role in the organization.

"The buy-in of those four coaches, the alignment, the understanding of, 'This program’s bigger than me and I’ll sacrifice for the program,'" Smart said. "They understand the role. They’ve done what they’ve been asked to do and they embrace it. There’s a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm at practice, and it works. It’s created a really good kind of connection among the staff."

Kearis Jackson has seen that up close and personal.

The senior receiver is now under McClendon's tutelage after learning from Cortez Hankton the past four years. He said the new coach has instilled a mentality of going hard every play.

"The transition, not taking plays off, taking every opportunity you can get," Jackson said. "Making sure you just take full advantage of it, because he’ll be ready to loaf you quick. If you don’t finish with your hands on anybody after the play, that’s a loaf. We just try to preach, just keep playing fast and give it all you got."

Those efforts are already being seen on the field. On Georgia's first touchdown in the season-opening win over Oregon, receiver AD Mitchell had a great block to help pave the way for a scoring run from Ladd McConkey.

Searels has also brought a new mindset to the offensive line room, according to redshirt sophomore offensive lineman Tate Ratledge.

"He’s kind of changed a couple things about how we go about every day. I’m a big fan of what he does," Ratledge said. "Just up front, just challenging us every day to go out there and have a great day. No bad days, just go out there and compete."

The new staff is off to a good start with Georgia's demolition of Oregon in week one. As the season progresses, Smart will continue to lean on them to continue getting the best out of their respective units.

"We’ve always had a good staff, but we’ve got a really great staff right now in terms of guys enjoying to work together and putting plans together," Smart said.