Spring games used to be lightly attended affairs. A vanilla offense with few newcomers didn't pack stadiums in April.

Kirby Smart changed that when he arrived in Athens.

In 2016, the story about Georgia football was not about what happened between the hedges, but above and around them.

The plan was shared two and a half months before G-Day and one mile south of those hedges.

Georgia’s men’s basketball team was hosting Arkansas. The Bulldogs held a three-point lead at halftime.

Smart, the new head football coach, was probably still punch drunk from a gauntlet month of being Georgia’s new football CEO while also leading Alabama’s defense as the Crimson Tide beat Clemson for the national championship.

Twelve days separated the confetti falling for Alabama and Smart's challenge being issued to Georgia supporters.

“I love the energy and passion here tonight,” Smart said to the basketball crowd. “We want to see the same energy and passion at the spring game. We want to see 93,000 there to come out and support us.”

Georgia basketball won that night in overtime, 76-73.

Georgia Sports Communications executed a marketing campaign around “93k Day.”

The movement grew and UGA enlisted the help of Ludacris, including paying for his infamous hospitality rider that included Fruit Roll-Ups, cognac, and other items.

Before NIL and the transfer portal dominated the college football conversation, Georgia captured national attention by bringing in an iconic rapper and paying for his booze and scented toiletries.

Georgia used this concert to recruit players like Andrew Thomas, Tyler Clark, and Brian Herrien.

It is the same class that included then-walk-on quarterback Stetson Bennett.

Fans arrived.

Ludacris performed.

Georgia accomplished the very first goal Kirby Smart set for it.

“Wow,” said Smart in his first official postgame news conference as UGA’s head football coach.

“It touches me in my heart,” Smart said while patting his chest. “It makes a special moment to know that the fanbase has got your back and has got your program’s back.”

You won’t find that 2016 spring football game in SEC record books. That does not mean that game did not count. It sparked the 94 wins, two national championships, and two SEC championships (and counting) that have come since.

Much was made about Kirby Smart’s homecoming on that G-Day weekend in 2016. While he came home, one of his underrated accomplishments has been protecting home.

The upcoming season will be Georgia’s ninth in the Smart era. The Bulldogs have four home losses in that time. Three came in the first season. Since Smart’s second G-Day game in 2017, Georgia football has only one loss in Sanford Stadium.

One home loss over seven seasons.

‘Wow,’ indeed.