Kirby Smart faced his share of criticism in 2013 and ’14 when Alabama’s championship defense started to crumble.

But, as he’s finding out this spring, the potential for outrage and negative emotion grew exponentially when he became head coach at one of the proudest college football programs in the country.

Just a few practices into his tenure in Athens, Smart has been held up as a bastion of all that’s wrong about college athletics for placing transfer restrictions on outgoing running back A.J. Turman. ESPN radio personality went on an anti-Smart rant that included repeated uses of “disgrace” and “shame on you,” and he wasn’t alone.

After being connected to new Georgia legislation intended to slow the flow of athletics information to the public in cases of open records requests, Smart has been branded an out-of-control — well, control freak. One who some say has overstepped his bounds, even as UGA has downplayed his involvement in that bill.

But you know what? Maybe it’s a good thing for Georgia’s football program to get a little more cut-throat.

We’re not suggesting that Smart break any rules or go full-fledged Mike Rice on his players. But, right or wrong, the last few teams that coach Mark Richt fielded in Athens just weren’t intimidating.

Some of that was physical toughness. Alabama, for instance, all but shut down running back Nick Chubb in a dominant road victory against the Bulldogs in 2015. Some of it was just performance, as UGA struggled to put away teams like Georgia Southern.

For all the “Richt is a great man with good character” narrative discussions — the veracity of which we don’t doubt — there was a sometimes-unspoken undertone regarding his team’s seeming lack of discipline and accountability at times.

Nick Saban’s “The Process” isn’t a new creation, nor is it rocket science. He learned it under coach Don James, as did former Missouri coach Gary Pinkel — who branded it “Mizzou Made.” Smart is instilling his own version of that culture right now at Georgia.

The idea is simple. Details matter. Everything should be structured and regimented. Everyone is under the microscope at all times. Competition abounds. Players and coaches will be held accountable.

That’s not to say that you have to agree with Smart’s decision to restrict transfers. And we’ll leave it up to you to decide whether his involvement in the open records legislation deserves judgement. But if you’re a Georgia fan, surely you’re excited for the initial energy percolating from Flowery Branch, where the team is practicing while it awaits the completion of a new $30 million practice facility.

“Toughness” seems to be a motif for Smart this year, as he brought it up at his introductory press conference and after the team’s first spring practice. And not to get all Crimson on you, but there was something to the Tide’s success during the Saban-Smart era beyond just recruiting the country’s best talent.

DawgNation.com, perhaps the premier site covering Georgia’s football team in 2016, summed it up best after the team began spring ball:

“You can tell he’s a dominant person by the way he speaks and his actions,” running back Sony Michel said. “He tells you what he wants. There’s nothing sugar-coated about it. He tells you exactly how he wants something done.”

More Michel: “He’s going to push us to the limit. He’s going to push us harder than we’ve ever been pushed. He’s going to see us strain. He’s going to see us go until we just can’t go any more.”

Some players are walking on eggshells.

Some fans will smile at this.

It sure seems like Smart intends to put the “Dawg” back in the Bulldogs. If the football team turns out to be a little meaner on the field, that’ll play just fine.