UGA coach Kirby Smart revealed some interesting nuggets about his Bulldogs this fall.
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From an NIL perspective, I believe the model KS uses is the best: build your team with high school recruits and fill holes via the transfer portal. The key to using that model is the ability to recognize and recruit talent from high school. UGA has an advantage there because KS and his staff are the best at recognizing and recruiting talent, and they are in the State of Georgia and can recruit from Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Schools can't control how much other schools will offer a player to transfer, but they can control the talent they identify and how they develop that talent. It's always better to focus on the things you control instead of worrying about what everybody else is doing. People will talk about the successes of programs like Indiana that were built through the portal, but no one talks about Florida State, which built a great portal team that went 13-0 three years ago but has been 2-10 and 5-7 the past two years. That tells me that teams built through the portal are not sustainable when compared to teams that recruit and develop their own HS talent.
Maybe Weston can serve as an analyst for North Carolina’s football coaching staff. 😏
What you say is true. But what you didn't acknowledge is that there are at least 2 specific programs (TX, Mia) that wait for UGA to identify, "recognize and recruit talent from high school" and then move in to outbid them once they have committed to UGA. And it is all legal. For now.
We are still in the recruiting era where money trumps everything else. Hopefully some changes are made to CFB to level the playing field and bring some structure to the Wild Wild West. Until then or until CKS decides he wants to pay up for freshmen , UGA will not recruit as many elite players as it has in years past.
