Kirby Smart had heard enough by the time SEC Media Days wrapped on Tuesday.
The Georgia coach spent plenty of the day fielding questions about the Bulldogs’ NIL approach, and at first he answered them the way he usually does. But after getting hit with the same topic again and again, his patience clearly wore thin.
The questions have become a familiar part of the conversation around Georgia. Nearly every week for the past few years, there has been another article or social media post suggesting the Bulldogs are falling behind in NIL. That scrutiny keeps following Smart, even though Georgia has built its own method and stuck to it.
The Bulldogs are not trying to outbid everyone for every recruit or transfer. Their approach is to avoid overpaying and instead bring in players who want to be at Georgia for football and for the winning culture Smart has built. Players still get NIL money once they arrive in Athens, and those who become elite are rewarded with bigger deals designed to keep them from leaving.
On the field, the results have backed it up. Since NIL became legal in 2021, Georgia has won two national championships and three SEC titles. Michigan is the only program that comes close in that span, with one national championship and three Big Ten titles, though the source notes that came with a lot of controversy along the way.
Even so, the criticism keeps coming, including the chatter around Georgia’s 2027 recruiting class being ranked outside the top 10 right now. Smart’s frustration is easy to understand: Georgia has won more than anyone else in the country during the NIL era, yet it is still getting questioned about whether it is doing things the right way.
At this point, the case for Georgia seems pretty simple. The Bulldogs have been the best program in the country during the NIL era, and Smart’s track record says plenty on its own. If he can’t be trusted in this landscape, the argument goes, then who can?
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Now Muschamp is moving into a spot that matters well beyond Austin, because Texas and Georgia are expected to keep crossing paths in the SEC race. Steve Sarkisian has already made clear how much he values Muschamps approach and the way he connects with players, which only adds to the intrigue for a league where the margin between contenders can be thin and familiar faces tend to matter more than anyone wants to admit. [Read more 🡒]