Kirby Smart will forever be known as one of the greatest recruiters in college football history. Bringing in top five recruiting classes year after year, the Georgia Bulldogs have cemented a blue-chip standard for themselves.
However, with an evolving landscape surrounding college football and the introduction of NIL, every college has had to adjust their recruiting strategies. Most colleges have even completely disregarded core priorities in the lives of college young adults and turned it into a bidding war for talent like the NFL.
In NCAA power rankings for top 25 NIL player evaluations, not a single Bulldog showed. This means Smart is not playing a bidding war, he is recruiting something that matters more.
Georgia, Kirby Smart still recruit People and not Dollar Signs
Several teams can be seen multiple times on this top 25 list, shoveling out millions of dollars on these players. In some cases, millions of dollars into one single college student. It speaks volumes about how the University of Georgia can refrain from following this strategy and yet remain one of the top programs in college football.
In an article by DawgNation's Connor Riley nearly a year ago, Smart even said that the program is "going to continue to recruit people who love football, who are passionate about football, and that don’t put money as the number one answer."
Georgia fans should be proud of their coach. It is a formula that has worked for generations of champions, and Smart is not throwing that out the window and demanding increased NIL budgets that ultimately defund or even cancel academic programs within a university. The victories matter, but the livelihood of the student athletes and all students in general matter most.
If you want to talk about victories, look at the grit of Georgia's teams in recent memory. Check out how hard these guys play in tough scenarios. Look at how long Gunner Stockton stuck it out to play and represent his homestate team. If you need any more evidence, just look up Stetson Bennett. That doesn't happen in other campuses... that happens in Athens.
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