Disaster struck the Georgia football program last week when former five-star commit Donte Wright flipped his commitment to Miami. This development sent Georgia spiraling down the recruiting rankings and left some fans wondering if Kirby Smart lost his touch.
Fast forward a few days though and new intel has come out directly from Wright that explains why he left Georgia. And it's safe to say that Smart will not be missing him after finding this out.
"There are a lot of people who are going to say I took the bag or whatever," Wright said via x.com. “If I’m being real with you, I could’ve gone somewhere else and taken a way crazier bag and surprised everyone."
5-star Donte Wright believes in everything that Kirby Smart hates
Wright took to social media to address some rumors surrounding his decision to flip to Miami. The vast consensus was that he did so to chase a large NIL deal that the Hurricanes must've been offering him. The above quote from Wright doesn't confirm that to be true, but he did say that he could've chosen a different school that made an even larger offer.
Reading between the lines though shows that he more than likely left Georgia because Miami offered him a much larger sum of money.
Regardless of if that is true or not, the fact that Wright knows he could've gone to a completely different school for a large offer shows he was never the right player for Georgia in the first place. Smart wants players to come to Georgia who actually want to be here, not those that are chasing money.
And those players that come to Georgia for the right reasons and develop into elite players will be rewarded financially.
Kirby Smart won't lose sleep after learning why Donte Wright flipped to Miami
Smart clearly knows what he is doing. NIL became legal during the summer of 2021, and what has happened since then? Georgia won two National Championships immediately after NIL became legal and also rattled off three SEC titles as well.
No program in the entire country has had as much success as Georgia since 2021, so Smart's strategy is clearly working.
Rival fans however still love to make fun of Georgia when they lose recruitments like this. It's easy for them to say "get your money up" or "Georgia is broke" when they lose recruitments because of NIL, but losing recruitments like this is just fine with Smart.
Would he have rather kept Wright in his recruiting class? Initially he probably wanted to, but now that it's clear that he cares too much about money he no longer was a good fit for Georgia's program. That may sound insane to suggest since he is a five-star recruit, but that thought process is exactly how Smart has won so much at Georgia the last five years.
Georgia will be just fine without Wright. Smart will find the right players who want to be at Georgia, and after they hoist multiple championship trophies during their college career before heading to the NFL and signing massive contracts they will never regret coming to Athens for a little less money out of high school.
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