NIL has taken over the college football world, and with every passing day it seems to carry an even greater important. Not at Georgia though.
Kirby Smart is doing everything he can to ensure that NIL deals are the least important thing when it comes to a recruiting players to Georgia.
"We’ve got to be competitive,” Smart said via dawgnation.com. “We don’t have to have the school with the most. We don’t have to have the school that offers the most. As a matter of fact, I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to be the one that’s known for paying. You attract kids that are money hungry if they just want to be the most. But we want to be competitive. We want to mix our development, our winnings, our culture, all the things these NFL teams say about us.”
Georgia's recruiting strategy is polar opposite from the rest of the country
Smart made it clear that his NIL strategy does not involve offering recruits the most money. In fact, he was very blunt that he never wants Georgia to be that type of program.
Smart still wants Georgia to be competitive when it comes to NIL because if they weren't than no one would want to come to UGA. But he knows that the players who care the most about how much money they are making are not the players he wants at Georgia.
Things like winning, culture, development and NFL success matter far more to Georgia and Smart than any amount of NIL money. And if that is something a recruit doesn't agree with then they do not belong at Georgia.
So while most of the country is worried about how much money they can offer players, Smart and Georgia are going about things quite differently. And so far it has resulted in three SEC Championships and two national titles since NIL became legal.