Alabama has a new coach and a new edge on Kirby Smart and Georgia

Kirby Smart is on the hot seat.

No, not that hot seat, the kind that burns your silver britches before your tenure goes up in flames. A resume highlighted by two national championships at his alma mater in the midst of an SEC-record 42 straight regular-season victories pretty much makes him fireproof far into the future.

In the present, the most accomplished college football coach at work today is about to feel a different kind of heat. It's hotter than Georgia asphalt, and it's burned Smart five times on the six occasions he got too close to the crimson flame. 

Welcome back to Alabama, Coach. Hope you packed your flame-retardant khakis. The Tuscaloosa forecast for Saturday night calls for 91 percent humidity and at least a 50 percent chance of humility.

A timeless question springs to mind as Smart prepares to face the Crimson Tide for the first time with nice guy Kalen DeBoer smiling across the field at him instead of menacing mentor Nick Saban. If not now, when?

What will it mean if Smart's ninth Georgia team, which has not lost a regular-season game in 1,418 days, can't beat DeBoer's first Alabama team? Was Saban his elusive white whale or was it the whole Roll Damn Tide?

Read the entire column in the Lede.

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