Kirby Smart addresses the changes in recruiting, areas of improvement

College football year after year changes more in more in a variety of ways, as the landscape continues to evolve in front of the eyes of players, fans, and coaches alike.

One area that has changed a lot over time is recruiting, and at SEC Media Days, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was asked how he’s seen recruiting change over time and where recruiting could potentially improve.

“Recruiting has always been recruiting right? It’s changed because the rules and parameters have changed, I mean we moved up a signing day, moved it to December, which then made us all do official visits in June,” Smart said.

Smart’s perspective is an interesting one, saying that recruiting itself has not necessarily changed, but various elements around the recruiting space have. As he even referenced the difference between his time as a high school recruit and his time currently as a recruiter and a head coach.

“I mean I’ve seen this whole transformation from a recruit in 1994 that went on an official visit in late January to you would never even bring a guy hardly even in a visit in January because they’re almost all already enrolled,” Smart explained. “So the cycle has flipped in terms of that.”

Nuances like the early signing period and the transfer portal have definitely had in impact on the recruiting calendar and cycle, but Smart did open up on how recruiting itself has fundamentally changed and could potentially improve.

“When you talk about improving recruiting, I think so much used to be built on your facility, and how you can show them how you can develop them, the education, what’s your major gonna be, what do you want to do, life after football,” Smart said.

As times change, so has the priorities of recruits, which Smart believes has been heavily impacted by the introduction of name, image, and likeness now prevalent in all collegiate athletics.

“And so much now has become directed towards NIL, and I think that’s some of Commissioner Sankey’s frustration of trying to make that at least somewhat uniform so that we’re not operating under different rules state to state,” Smart said.

It’s no secret that NIL now has a major impact on recruiting, as student-athletes now have the chance to generate revenue for themselves and seek opportunities to do so at any given program during their recruitment.

And with different states having different rules and regulations surrounding NIL, some programs have advantages over others depending on where they’re located. This has been one of the hottest topics of SEC Media Days and the entire offseason, and it will definitely be interesting to see how coaches like Smart continue to navigate though these new uncharted waters in the recruiting space.

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