A new trend has emerged in college football recruiting, and unfortunately it is making life more difficult for Kirby Smart and Georgia.
This year recruits are committing to schools earlier than they ever have before. They are still lining up a handful of official visits throughout the month of June like they always have, but for some reason more players are committing to a school before they complete all of their visits.
Unfortunately this is a trend that Kirby Smart hasn't fully jumped on board with yet, and if he doesn't make changes soon Georgia could suffer some major consequences.
Kirby Smart must adjust or Georgia could suffer major consequences
Georgia is off to a rough start with the 2027 recruiting class. They do have two five-stars committed already, but they are still ranked No. 33 in the country because they only have seven commits.
A big reason why this has happened is because so many other schools have convinced players to commit early while Georgia has not.
In the past recruits would almost always take all of their visits before making their final decisions. So it didn't matter if Georgia was the first visit, last visit or somewhere in the middle, they always had their chance to host a recruit and convince them to pick Georgia.
That however isn't happening anymore as a lot of schools are convincing recruits to commit before they take all of their visits. Georgia saw that happen this week with four-star Jatori Williams who committed to Miami even though he had a trip to Athens scheduled for next week.
Unfortunately Smart hasn't been able to convince players to commit early like these other schools. So now Georgia has to wait for players like four-star Adryan Cole to visit LSU next weekend and five-star Eric McFarland to visit Texas A&M.
Usually recruiting rankings don't matter in May as Georgia has plenty of time to climb back up the rankings. But so many of their top targets have already committed elsewhere while others didn't pull the trigger after visiting Georgia, and if this trend continues then Georgia fans could see their recruiting class ranked far lower than they are used to seeing.
Kirby Smart's coaching prowess will be put to the test
Let's say Georgia's recruiting classes start falling outside of the top 10 every year. That would mean they no longer have the talent on paper to compete for National Championships, so Smart's abilities as a coach would be tested.
The good news is that Smart is one of the best developers of talent in the country. He has turned so many low level recruits into NFL Draft picks, and that is the greatest sign of a coach doing his job well.
But can he keep doing that while bringing championships to Georgia if his recruiting classes aren't as strong anymore? It's impossible to say because they have never been in that position before, but everyone has to hope that Smart is able to start adding commits soon or things could get really dicey in the 2027 recruiting class and beyond.
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