Crimson Red Sports

Homer Smith may be the most revered college football coach who ever won 53 games in a 12-year head-coaching career. Smith, who died this week in Tuscaloosa, Ala., at age 79, coached across five decades. He achieved little fame but garnered, among the coaches who worked with him and the writers who covered him, an enormous amount of respect and adoration.

Georgia State head coach Bill Curry, who hired Smith at Alabama in 1988, described Smith on the ESPNU College Football Podcast this week as “the best football coach I’ve ever seen.”

And Curry played for Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech and Vince Lombardi at Green Bay, both Hall of Famers in their respective categories.

“The day after he left our staff at Arizona,” Tomey said, “I assembled the staff and said to them, ‘We need to write down all that Homer taught us." We were still writing two hours later.”