How Kirby Smart is countering negative recruiting tactics against Georgia

Georgia coach Kirby Smart knows what opponents are saying about him and his football program.

When schools pitch prospective recruits, Smart says rival schools love to point out that Georgia is not paying top dollar for elite high school prospects.

The Bulldogs have missed out on a number of top targets of late. The last cycle had 5-star quarterback Jared Curtis flip to Vanderbilt, while Texas Tech beat out Georgia for 5-star edge rusher LaDamion Guyton. It’s hard to believe finances didn’t play a part in losing those players to nontraditional powers.

“I want you to earn it and work your way up,” Smart told college football analyst Josh Pate in a recent interview. “People hear it all the time in recruiting, they want to use this as a negative to us.”

Some data shows that tactic is working. The Bulldogs signed the sixth-ranked recruiting class this past cycle. That is a step down from where the Bulldogs have traditionally ranked under Smart. It was the first time since 2016, when Smart spent much of the recruiting cycle working as the defensive coordinator at Alabama, that the Bulldogs did not sign a recruiting class that ranked in the top 5.

For the 2026 class, the Bulldogs signed just two top 50 overall prospects in the 247Sports Composite rankings: No. 36 Ekene Ogboko and No. 38 Kaiden Prothro. That was the fewest top 50 recruits in any of Smart’s classes at Georgia.

As of Tuesday morning, Georgia holds two top 50 commitments in the 2027 recruiting cycle: running back Kemon Spell (No. 6) and tight end Jaxon Dollar (No. 33). Georgia had 5-star cornerback Donte Wright (No. 9) flip his commitment to Miami last weekend. Miami went above and beyond what Georgia was willing to pay in the last cycle to land 5-star offensive lineman Jackson Cantwell and it appears the Hurricanes have used the same tactic to win the services of Wright.

Smart very well knows this type of recruiting isn’t going away. The Georgia coach might have to adapt how he builds his program if he doesn’t want to experience the same fate as Clemson coach Dabo Swinney or former LSU coach Brian Kelly.

“We need to find 22,” Smart said. “And there’s thousands of them good enough out there. Like the difference in the top thousand players … I just need to find 22 that want to be here.”

Smart’s goal is to keep the players he signs together. While Alabama, Texas and Ohio State all had 20-plus players transfer this offseason, Georgia had only 12.

That level of retention is helping age up Georgia. Compared to last season, the Bulldogs have nine more players for 2026 who have spent at least three seasons in Athens.

Smart doesn’t want top prospects cycling out of the program after just one or two seasons. Ohio State, Southern Cal and Auburn all had 2025 5-star prospects transfer out of their respective programs after just one season.

“We’ve been a much more developmental,” Smart said. “We’ve been a much more, hey, we think this guy’s a really good player and we feel comfortable paying him, but we don’t have to pay him the most money. And then he’s just going to get better by being in our program. And that’s a developmental route versus a purchase route.”

Smart acknowledges that recruiting rankings tend to be accurate in terms of determining who has the kind of athletic traits that lead to a high draft slot in the NFL draft.

But Smart taps into some of the advantages a place like Georgia offers to find more gems than the average program. Georgia is a talent-rich state, as it produced the third-most picks in the 2026 NFL draft (22) and the third-most blue-chip recruits (47) in the 2026 cycle.

Georgia signed 24 blue-chip recruits in the 2026 class, tied with Notre Dame for the most of any school in the cycle. Based on how some of those prospects — Prothro, defensive back Tyriq Green — looked this spring, the Bulldogs seem to have had no issues landing prospects who can help right away.

Smart understands how fast things change, especially on the recruiting front. The Bulldogs signed the No. 2 overall recruiting class in 2023, their first after having won back-to-back national championships.