It is a well known fact that Kirby Smart isn't the biggest fan of NIL. He by no means is against players making money of their name, image and likeness, but the bidding wars that occur all across college football is the last thing he wants to be involved in.
But Smart knows that he has to take these NIL negotiations seriously because it is impossible to win nowadays without a good NIL structure. But his motivation heading into these negotiations is a bit different from the rest of the country.
“When we go offer guys NIL, I got to have the competitive nature to do it,” Smart said via dawgnation.com. “Do I love it? No, I don’t. I don’t love it. I don’t love having to talk about money, but I do love winning.”
Kirby Smart is disgusted at NIL bidding wars
Smart very bluntly said that he doesn't like the competitive nature of NIL that is seen in college football today. He knows this is not how NIL was designed to be, but unfortuantely it is the reality of the sport today.
So why does Smart take part in these bidding wars even if he doesn't like it? Because he likes winning and he knows this is what he has to do to put Georgia in the best position possible to win.
There is a key difference though between how he handles NIL deals compared to the rest of the country. Smart and Georgia will not overpay for an unproven recruit while the rest of the country is willing to throw millions at a player who hasn't even stepped foot on a college campus.
Georgia on the other hand will fight for players that have proven themselves on the field in college. That is especially the case for those players who chose UGA out of high school and blossomed into elite players.
So while the rest of the country is worried about spending as much money as possible, Smart and Georgia are going about it in a much more caluclated way. And the results from the last five years speak for itself.