ESPN on how Kirby Smart built UGA into a dynasty
Especially before the last two years, a common Michigan fan sentiment was that the only reason other teams fared better than us was because they were willing to cheat in recruiting. That critique was faulty for many reasons, one of them being: if every other team cheats, then do the best teams win by cheating more, or by being actually good at football? And what happens when paying players is legal?
This ESPN article, about how Kirby Smart took down Alabama, is excellent in that regard. I was especially impressed by how much UGA has invested in recruiting under Kirby. Michigan has done similar things, but according to the article, UGA towers over the Power Five in spending on recruiting:
At one point, Smart handed [then-UGA Athletic Director] McGarity a flowchart containing all the positions and reporting responsibilities within the organization. The recruiting department would roughly double in size. The chart was so big and complex that it couldn't fit on McGarity's tablet. Positions were color-coded to distinguish salaried from hourly employees...McGarity said he was determined to empower Smart, rather than being a "helicopter" AD questioning him at every turn. But he does remember looking over the flowchart and wondering, "What are all these people going to do?"
"Once you saw a recruiting weekend in action, you said, 'I get it,'" McGarity said. It wasn't just the number of people required to pull off Smart's vision of an official visit that impressed McGarity but also the coordination that took place, all the way down to the janitorial staff. From the moment a player set foot on campus, he and his family had a Georgia representative with them the entire time -- a driver, a tour guide, a coach. There were no large groups where someone could get lost or let their mind wander. Everything was personalized.
"I'm always going to have a presence because I think it shows the players, it shows the people in the organization, that everything we do is important," Smart said. "And if you're not there and you're not relevant, you know, what does that say you're saying about that part of the organization? And I just think it's too important to be involved..."
From 2016 to 2018, Georgia spent $7 million on recruiting -- $1.5 million more than any other public university in the Power 5, according to a USA Today Network study. And that's not to mention the millions of dollars that went toward the kind of infrastructure recruits notice: new locker rooms, a new players lounge, a new indoor practice facility.
Robby Discher spent one season as a quality control coach at Georgia before taking the special teams coordinator job at Tulane. A former Group of 5 and FCS assistant, he marveled at the resources Smart had assembled. He singled out director of player personnel Matt Godwin for his skill in overseeing a robust recruiting operation. He called associate director of recruiting operations Angela Kirkpatrick a "stud." He said director of recruiting relations David Cooper is incredible, working the phones day and night, connecting with prospects and coaches.
That's all before you get to on-field assistants Smart hired, such as Dell McGee and Todd Hartley, who are some of the best recruiters in the country.
"I think it starts with him," Discher said of Smart. "He's a relentless recruiter. ... He's on you about it. If he asks [about a prospect], you better know."
December 26th, 2022 at 1:48 PM ^
I’d call the title “probable/eventual but also premature.”
Their path can still be derailed and prevented. Not that I am predicting any mediocrity out of Athens. It’s just that the “dynasty” standard requires such outlier accomplishments that one needn’t be a hater to put a pause on that praise.
In my estimation, they need this year’s NC and perhaps three more in the following 5-6 years to have earned the same category as Saban’s Bama. I.E., they are more “on track” than anyone else but haven’t earned it yet.
December 26th, 2022 at 2:47 PM ^
That would mean UGa winning five national titles in 7-8 years - better than what Saban has done at Bama. In Tuscaloosa, Saban's won six national titles but did so over a stretch of 12 years (2009-2020).
December 26th, 2022 at 5:48 PM ^
My first reflex was to totally agree that it was probably hyperbolic. But having checked just now, it seems a subset of Saban's NC's did include 5 in 8 years (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017).
December 26th, 2022 at 7:33 PM ^
That's 5 in 9 years. Still impressive.
December 26th, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
$$$$$$$!!$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!
December 26th, 2022 at 2:29 PM ^
a common Michigan fan sentiment was that the only reason other teams fared better than us was because they were willing to cheat in recruiting. That critique was faulty for many reasons, one of them being: if every other team cheats, then do the best teams win by cheating more, or by being actually good at football? And what happens when paying players is legal?
Exactly Blue Texan.
It's not faulty when they (Georgia and $EC as a whole) used money when it was illegal (in a compliance sense) and continue to spend even MORE money (illegal in a compliance sense given NIL) than others including Michigan.
Sorry - this is a lazy take an trying to whitewash what Georgia and the $EC have done. They've thrown all the middle fingers at the NCAA and continue to do so.
Lamborghini anyone?
December 26th, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
Pretty loose lingo with "Dynasty". They are the top Dawgs right now but one natty isn't a dynasty.
December 26th, 2022 at 9:22 PM ^
One Natty is never enough
December 26th, 2022 at 2:00 PM ^
It's just a younger Saban when it comes to recruiting. Everything he does is pure Saban, down to the janitorial staff literally, actually being vetted and taught how to help recruit beyond being a janitor.
Cheating does help. Unquestionably. However, if you don't know how to buy the right guys as well as coach them up it won't matter much more than a well-oiled program that isn't cheating. It can even be much, much worse should you grab a bunch of bad apples in that quest for the best talent. It still is a game of jimmies & joes but those players unfocused or poorly coached won't be anywhere near what they could be.
But everything written is just Saban's playbook. He told the Bama AD after hiring him that he hired a horseshit coach but nobody will out-recruit him. He meant it and runs that department like a military school. Yes, they also buy who they need to buy but that's not what makes the car go.
December 26th, 2022 at 2:57 PM ^
So 7 of the top 13 programs in the 2023 football recruiting rankings (247 composite) have coaches directly tied to Saban at Bama. Saban, Smart, Cristobal, Fisher, Napier, Sarkisian, and Lanning. Obviously they lead big-time programs, but several recorded disastrous seasons with their level of talent (TAMU, Texas, UF) that don’t justify top 10 classes and Fisher/Saban put the cheater label on each other as recruiters.
Effective cheating is a process and set of skills that can be applied once learned. Likely fits with the Saban tree.
December 26th, 2022 at 2:05 PM ^
There is no way Kirby Smart jumpstarted UGA's recruiting machine with a sophisticated org chart alone (it's COLOR CODED!).
December 26th, 2022 at 3:26 PM ^
This is how he jumpstarted it....
December 26th, 2022 at 2:08 PM ^
Without reading the article I’ll still say that Smart bought many a tractors and filled lots of duffel bags. Last year nfl defense was largely assembled before Nil was a thing. Doesn’t take a nasa engineer to do the math on that one.
December 26th, 2022 at 2:12 PM ^
Not sure a team can buy an instant dynasty. It'll be interesting to see how the team Texas A&M bought last year works out down the road. Oregon seems to be working on that now, too.
Obviously recruiting helps. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out. The challenge is to recruit well, and then build a winning program. Seems to me there are an awful lot of variables that have to combine just right in order for that to happen.
What if by some miracle one of the other playoff teams beats Georgia this year? The odds are against it, perhaps, but if it were to happen, does that nullify the Georgia dynasty hype and anoint another contender?
December 26th, 2022 at 2:56 PM ^
TAM is going to get screwed by timing. They threw a lot of money at recruits just as free agency (the portal) revved up. But a bunch of highly recruited freshman don't make a good football team. They're going to end up having spent a lot of money on kids who will transfer somewhere else.
December 26th, 2022 at 2:23 PM ^
Let’s not fall for this nonsense. Georgia was passing out bags before they were legal!
December 26th, 2022 at 2:37 PM ^
Just like any other article, it is important to consider the source. ESECPN is of course going to write a piece like this promoting their biggest revenue source. Not to say that what they wrote is not the truth, but is it the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
It does seem that Smart has taken everything that Saban taught him to a whole new level, and that other universities who want to compete would do well to emulate many aspects of his approach.
December 26th, 2022 at 2:49 PM ^
Give. Me. A. Break.
Most people with a UM degree possess some critical thinking skills.
tl;dr version of article: “overseeing a robust recruiting operation”
There is a reason Clemson, Alabama, OSU and other “next level” football schools have come back to the pack with the new NIL situation.
December 26th, 2022 at 3:23 PM ^
It will be interesting to see if the basketball equivalents (Kentucky, Kansas, Duke) fall off a little.
December 26th, 2022 at 2:50 PM ^
Basically, he took the Saban blueprint and applied to the school with the best recruiting base in the country. Georgia is a big state that is loaded with talent, and the only other P5 school there (Georgia Tech) can't recruit a lot of it due to academic restrictions.
The worrisome thing is that he's still pretty young (47) - he could be there a long time. Florida needs to get its act together to offer them some competition (I don't have faith in Tennessee).
December 26th, 2022 at 5:57 PM ^
Georgia has a good recruiting base to be sure, but so do the Florida schools, USC, Texas, et al.:
December 26th, 2022 at 7:36 PM ^
The difference is that there is far more local competition in Florida, Texas and California.
UGa's only local competition (GT) has stricter admissions requirements.
December 26th, 2022 at 7:38 PM ^
Georgia's advantage, however, is the lack of direct in-state competition.
There are many more in-state schools going after the talent in CA, FL, and TX.
December 26th, 2022 at 7:53 PM ^
“In-state” is a loose term in this case to only reference UGA and GT. Auburn is 30 min from GA, FSU is 30 min, and Clemson is 30 min - all 3 are essentially on the border of GA. The first two are much closer to the southern GA talent areas than even UGA. Atlanta should be solidly a UGA recruiting base, and it has 5.5m people and fantastic high school football.
December 27th, 2022 at 6:38 AM ^
That mugs got some miles on it for only 47. Hell I figured he was pushing 60 but never gave a shit enough to look.
December 26th, 2022 at 3:03 PM ^
So Kirby just had better swim lanes? Is that what this is telling us?
December 26th, 2022 at 3:06 PM ^
No dynasty until you win a second natty
December 26th, 2022 at 3:13 PM ^
No using the word ‘natty’ unless you’re under 23 and in school
December 27th, 2022 at 11:37 AM ^
When people say Natty-
December 26th, 2022 at 3:09 PM ^
December 26th, 2022 at 3:26 PM ^
He also cheated
December 26th, 2022 at 3:28 PM ^
Georgia's strategy to beat Bama was to lose by a ton to them in a meaningless game and then have all of Bama's best players get injured for the rematch in the national title game. Great strategy
December 26th, 2022 at 4:00 PM ^
The story highlights one of the biggest reasons a coach might prefer the NFL over college. Recruiting must involve an incredible amount of time and effort, all of which amounts to kissing some kid’s ass to try to convince them to play for you. Now that big money is becoming more involved in the process, it must be even worse.
Harbaugh has already talked about a Super Bowl championship as being his ultimate goal. No, I don’t think he’ll be looking for an NFL job this year, although I bet he’d listen if a great opportunity came to him. If it doesn’t, he knows that Michigan is set up to be excellent again next season and after three great seasons in a row, his appeal to NFL teams would never be greater. He can also see the obvious; that despite the success of the last two years, it doesn’t look like Michigan will ever be able to recruit quite like the top schools, so maintaining this level of success will be extremely challenging. With Edwards almost certainly gone and maybe McCarthy as well, combined with this year’s relatively disappointing recruiting class, what will the 2024 team look like? If he’s ever going to leave Michigan, a year from now will be the most likely time…unless they win it all this year.
December 27th, 2022 at 6:35 AM ^
And he told Ward that his wandering eye is done for good. Harbaughs as eccentric as it gets, but a “my word is my bond” kind of guy. Winning a Super Bowl is not an easy thing to do and even harder to do again. He’s gonna keel over in A2 wearing a whistle around his neck with a smile on his face.
December 26th, 2022 at 4:02 PM ^
I read this article and given it was a fluff piece by ESPN I didn't expect a ton of deep analysis but I was still surprised how surface-level it was. Yes, Georgia works really hard at recruiting and are just so smart, hardworking, and handsome and they have the best coaches and kids love to play there and absolutely don't look any deeper than that into, I don't know, Smart lobbying the state to change open records laws to make it harder for people to investigate the football team or how their recruiting "system" definitely didn't start handing out bags of cash to recruits.
For some inexplicable reason people seem to think only schools like Tennessee and Ole Miss were cheating in recruiting because they were caught when in fact they were caught because they were really dumb about it. I'm happy kids were being paid under the table because they deserved some compensation but Georgia's approach shifted mightily from UGa under Mark Richt and it wasn't like Richt's efforts were truly lacking in that department.
Georgia probably doesn't have to play fast and loose as much anymore because of NIL and their success in the field, but much like Bama under Saban this success was built on blatant rule breaking that a toothless NCAA didn't care about. No amount of whitewashing by ESPN is going to change that.
December 26th, 2022 at 5:59 PM ^
But this is kind of my point, Comrade Bronx. Was UGA not cheating under Richt? UGA has been cheating for decades. It won its first national championship in four decades under Smart.
December 26th, 2022 at 8:55 PM ^
Mark Richt was known to be not unlike John Beilein in that he ran a decently clean program by college football standards. I'm sure they cheated but probably to the degree UM cheated, not to the degree your average SEC team did. And again, most of this "cheating" was just handing cash to kids to get them to play football, so we're not talking about high crimes here. But they were still rules that most schools at least tried to follow sometimes.
December 26th, 2022 at 4:03 PM ^
My Top 15 Recruiting Spenders
1. Texas A&M 2. Miami 3. Georgia 4. Alabama 5. USC 6. Florida 7. Colorado (Deon) ***with a bullett*** 8. Oregon 9. Ohio St. 10. Texas 11. Tennessee 12. LSU 13. Michigan St. 14. Oklahoma 15. Clemson
December 26th, 2022 at 4:10 PM ^
Too lazy to read it. Did it mention him successfully lobbying the state legislature to change their FOIA laws to help him get away with cheating?
December 26th, 2022 at 4:14 PM ^
This is more marketing than reporting by ESPN. Reminds me a little of United Passions, that hilarious movie FIFA produced to pretend that it wasn't disgustingly corrupt.
December 26th, 2022 at 4:31 PM ^
I look forward to the same article about us on January 10. Let's get it
December 26th, 2022 at 4:41 PM ^
That entire article could have been one or two sentences if the author had wanted to be nice. Georgia decided that trying to beat Bama would require someone with an inner knowledge of how Bama bends the recommendations of the NCAA. Because, as we all know, there are no real rules or penalties for breaking them.
December 26th, 2022 at 8:27 PM ^
Yes. And agreed on article lengths too.
December 26th, 2022 at 5:03 PM ^
Michigan puts a lot of resources into recruiting, but not what Georgia does. I doubt Harbaugh really wants to go to that level and will keep doing what he's doing - specific targeting of highly ranked players he feels are a good fit, and filling in the rest of the roster with solid players he can develop and proven portal guys. I personally don't believe we can beat the recruiting mills like GA and Bama using that approach. But I'm fine if our ceiling is consistently winning the Big Ten Championship and getting into the CFP's.
December 26th, 2022 at 5:10 PM ^
Dynasty? The only won last year because the NCAA made them play Bama a second time and Bama was going to win until their receiver got hurt. And this was with their best ever defense with players who almost never stick around that long.
December 28th, 2022 at 9:16 AM ^
Was there any mention of the “brown bag lunch program” they offer to highly regarded prospects?