Kirby Smart prioritizes development over portal noise ahead of Georgia’s CFP run

Kirby Smart knows what it takes to win in the modern college football environment.

Smart, like every other college football coach, must balance winning games while overcoming the challenges posed by the transfer portal. Despite those demands, the former Nick Saban assistant led Georgia to four Southeastern Conference championships and two College Football Playoff national championships.

This week, Smart shared his displeasure with social media gossip and the attention routinely given to a particular player’s transfer decision in general.

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Instead of focusing attention on the transfer announcement, Smart urged athletes to focus on development.

“Everybody explains what they’re doing,” Smart said Monday. “‘I’m announcing that I’m entering the portal. I’m announcing that I’m re-signing.’ How about announcing that you’re recovering and you’re going to be training, and in fact the college football players of the 20 and 30 years before you were training in December when they were on good teams and got better?

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Smart and Georgia are spending the week preparing for their quarterfinal matchup with Ole Miss. The Rebels soundly defeated Tulane in the first round to earn a spot in the Sugar Bowl against Georgia on New Year’s Day.

But preparing for a bowl game or playoff game doesn’t give coaches or teams a break from the ongoing competition to retain players.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart reacts on the sideline during the second half against Tennessee on November 16, 2024 in Athens, Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

“I mean, we’re focused on this team,” Smart said. “I think it would be wrong to say that we focused on squad management. We didn’t focus on that.”

This isn’t the first time Smart has spoken out about what he sees as the portal’s shortcomings. He has previously described this as the sport’s most pressing problem that needs to be fixed. In September, the NCAA announced it would reduce the two portal windows to a single 15-day period starting Jan. 2.

Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart is on the sidelines against the Tennessee Volunteers during the first quarter at Sanford Stadium in Athens on Nov. 16, 2024. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)

After the Bulldogs defeated the Texas Longhorns in November, Smart talked about process and physicality being pillars of the program he helped build during his decade-long tenure at Georgia. However, he added that not every player in today’s transfer portal and name, image and likeness (NIL) era is suitable for his program.

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“You have to recruit physical players and they have to buy into that process,” Smart said. “I don’t know about that, most of these kids these days want a check. They don’t want any physicality. If you have a check and there’s no physicality, you don’t have anything. So it’s just that in our house, you don’t get a check. We shoot people.”

Georgia and Ole Miss will kick off the Sugar Bowl at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on January 1, 2026 at 8 p.m.

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