MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – A recent report revealed that Georgia spent $4.51 million on recruiting during the 2022 fiscal year, almost doubling what it spent the first year under Kirby Smart.

However, when asked about that figure during Day 1 of the SEC spring meetings, that figure does not tell the entire story.

Sure, the Bulldogs spend a lot of money on recruiting, but Smart said the number as it pertains to the Bulldogs leaves out one very important fact.

"I think there's a little misnomer to that. You'd have to really study the numbers, and I don't know how much you guys dig into accounting methods, but we don't have a school plane; let's start with that,” Smart said. “If somebody has a school plane, let's say they take 100 flights in that plane, they're not counting those 100 flights. We might make 100 flights that we purchase, so our recruiting numbers are imbalanced based on that.”

Don’t get Smart wrong.

Georgia certainly does spend a lot of money on recruiting, and that will not be changing anytime soon.

“Absolutely. The SEC schools spend on recruiting. Is it necessary to be competitive? It is, and our administration has been great about supporting us,” Smart said. “But the numbers that people put out, some of those are eye-popping, and catching where some people are counting their numbers a lot differently, especially with flights, which is our No. 1 expense.”

The advent of NIL and playing time has made coaches like Smart work a lot harder than they used to.

"Yeah, that's tough. We spend a lot of time on connection and having a conversation,” Smart said. ‘We’ll ask 'Where are you? Are you happy with where you are? If you're not, what can we do to improve that and improve you as a player? Do you think that you're being developed?'”

Although it’s inevitable that players will leave, Smart said he always gives the example of former Bulldog Quay Walker when it comes to convincing players to stay.

“I always throw Quay Walker out because he was a kid that never started until his third year and went in the first round. Most kids are ready to leave if they're not starting by their third year. That was a great example,” he said. “But yeah, it's a lot more energy now in terms of spending with your own roster and just trying to maintain it. It's not just the portal. It's the combination of the portal and the NIL and everything going on that makes it at times excruciating."

With Georgia the two-time defending national championships and set to compete for a third this fall, many have asked whether or not the Bulldogs have surpassed Alabama as the standard in college football.

“First of all, I don’t hear that a lot, and second, I don’t measure our program based on their program,” he said. “We measure our program on doing the best we can do, and that’s doing the best job we can each and every year.”

The results, he said, will speak for themselves.

“Our success is based on how we work out, how we perform, how we run, how we turn over the ball, how we convert third downs. It’s really that simple,” Smart said. “It’s not based on the other program. I’ve got a lot of respect for Alabama and everything they’ve done, but it doesn’t have anything to do with us. The focus for us has to be on us.”

On tampering as an issue in recruiting

Smart: "Look, I'm not one that gets deep into these issues. People have hot-button topics that they want to talk about; they've got a word that they want to talk about. I think tampering's been going on for a long time. It's probably more prevalent because it's so much easier to transition from one school to another by way of the portal. So, look, if kids are exploring to leave, it's really hard to police. Ask the NCAA. If a kid goes to his trainer or high school coach, well, in our program we have people talking to those trainers and high school coaches."

Smart continued, "Word of mouth spreads that a guy's not happy and he's looking. Next thing you know, he's in the portal and he's already got somewhere that he wants to go. I don't really get caught up in it. I worry a lot more about my roster and say, 'How do we manage the people that we have so that they don't want to go somewhere else?' I focus on that. A lot of these teams have people on their staff that go out and watch the opposing team on the field to write down how they look, how they run. They're surveying the field for the portal. We're not that elaborate. We're going to try to focus on our guys, and retention is probably more important to me."

On if he would like to see penalties for clear cases of tampering

Smart: “Well, there are penalties for tampering. Most of the time, if they have a clear case, there’s something done about it. The problem is, it’s hard to police that, and it was hard to police that before. It’s distributing, it’s upsetting. People want to blame the coaches for the tampering. A lot of times it’s the player that's negotiating or looking for greener pastures. Sometimes they create tampering. It goes both ways. It’s hard to police. We have not been a major portal team. I could be telling you something those 12, 13, or 14 other guys come in here and say is a major issue. I’m not trying to go out and get anybody else. I want to get a kid from high school and develop him. Now ultimately, if we have a deficiency somewhere, or we have a spot available, then we’ll look to use the portal. But it’s not something we’ve done a lot."

On the 8 or 9-game SEC schedule issue

Smart: “Most overrated conversation there ever was. Four years you’ll play everybody home and away. I get it, the traditional rivalries, you have three, you have two, you have one. You guys need something to write about bad when you start writing about this. It’s not that big of a deal to me. You have to win your games to advance. You need to be in the SEC championship. That’s a lot better topic for me, is somebody going to get an advantage by not going to the SEC Championship Game but making the expanded playoff? That’s a lot better topic to me than eight or nine games. I think you’ve got to win your games, and now more than ever it’s going to be that way, because there’s not going to be divisions. That's true for both."

On if Georgia-Auburn is played every two years if conference schedule remains at eight

Smart: “It’s going to be tough, because there are so many people that want that historic rivalry, including me. I was part of that rivalry. I grew up as part of that rivalry. I think it’s one of the best there is, but I think it’s one of the costs of progress, bringing two more teams in. One of the costs of scheduling, getting more balanced in terms of you’re going to play everybody. It’s not just going to be Georgia-Auburn. It’s going to be somebody else for somebody else. Sometimes you call that progress. Sometimes you upset the fans. I think that’s a debate. Your traditionalists want those rivalries, and others want to see you play the teams they never get to see you play, and you can’t have both.”

On why does everyone else get riled up about 8 vs. 9

Smart: "I can’t honestly tell you that. I don’t know why people get wrapped up in it. I think with the nine, there’s the three permanent, and that creates a lot more debate because teams are like wait, I’ve got to play them. I’m concerned about who I have to play. Well, I’m looking at it like you’re going to probably play one or two of those three anyway because it’s going to cycle so quickly. You can go 10-year history, 20-year history, 5-year history, 3-year history. Pretty much in the SEC it changes outside of what Alabama has done the time Nick has been there; it's really been cyclical. It will probably over the next 20 or 30 years be the same way. I don’t get caught up in it a lot.”

On non-SEC teams making playoffs and SEC teams penalized for losing, and if it makes you re-evaluate an SEC championship game

Smart: “If it happens as you said it, then probably so. I don’t know that that would happen. It used to be you got penalized for what bowl game you got sent to when you lost the SEC championship game. They put a thing in place to say if you lose the SEC championship game, you can’t fall further than this. I would think that we would have a system set up, that if you made that, and we’re not talking about divisions now; divisions were different. You’d have two really strong teams over there, and one OK over there, and they’d play each other. That happened some. I know when I was at Alabama, there were teams in the West that were sometimes better than the team that won the East. That’s not going to be the case. The two teams that go, I’m looking at it from a competitive disadvantage of you might have to play one or two weeks later after just playing that game, which will be the most physical game the whole year.”

On the recruiting calendar in terms of the national championship beginning next year and the impact

Smart: "You're saying because the national championship game will fall a week later, the concern there? Not a major concern for me, because I think they're going to change the dates around that, OK? There are some answers we still have to get in terms of, OK, what's going on with the portal while these playoffs are going, because kids need to be able to go and pick their schools. What about when schools start? A guy's playing on this team, but he's leaving, and they've started school over there. There are problems inherent with that, and now you're extending that one week. They've got to figure that out.

“There's a lot of things that's got to happen in regards to that, but I'm not as concerned about recruiting, because they'll make that fit it. And the best thing you can do in recruiting is what? Win. These guys got mad at me in Birmingham, and [Mark] Stoops told them, 'There's no crying from the aisle' because I was complaining about something [about] having to play and not being able to go do these recruits. Well, if you're playing, then you're getting free advertisements. That's probably a good thing."

On if an injury report is worth talking about, or if it will be talked about to curtail inside information for gambling

Smart: "I honestly have no clue. I mean, look—I don't know how it's commoditized. I don't understand that, OK? If everybody's giving an injury report, I have no problem giving an injury report. They do it in the NFL. I was in the NFL. That's not a huge deal as long as it's a level playing field. A lot of the issues that are created in college sports today are based on an imbalance, because one state has this and another state has this, and we go back to the same thing. We need great leadership. We need somebody to come along and say, 'This is the way it's going to be done,' and everybody adheres to it, and then we can do it.

"Will that stop gambling? Probably not. Will it stop guys from trying to get inside information? Probably won't, but the NFL has it just as well."

On the changes to the game clock in terms of not stopping on incomplete passes

Smart: "No, I think it's another one that I think there's a lot to do about not much. I mean, they did a lot of studies at least in our league, and don't think it'll change but 2-3 plays per game. I do think the game's getting long, and this is an attempt to try to make it a little more efficient for the fan and the viewer, which is a big part of what we do."

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