ATHENS — Collectively, the Georgia football program is focused on its Sugar Bowl showdown with Ole Miss that’s rapidly approaching.
But behind the scenes next season’s roster is being determined, as Kirby Smart has met with players about their football futures.
Smart — arguably the master of modern-day roster management with the most NFL draft picks (46) and national titles (2) in college football the previous four years — has held private meetings with players about their football futures.
It’s fair to say retention, as much as recruiting, has been key to the Bulldogs’ championship runs going back to Jordan Davis and Devonte Wyatt deciding together to return for the 2021 season.
Georgia, with 54% of its roster made up of first- or second-year players, figures to have several key contributors returning to a team Smart has enjoyed coaching this season.
“A couple of them just told me they want to go back and practice tonight, they said they want to get out there tonight and get on a Bloody Tuesday when we get back home,” Smart said in his postgame on-field interview after the 28-7 SEC title game win over Alabama.
“That’s the kind of mentality this team has — they want to practice some more, they want to practice some more, they love contact, and we love them.”
Settling up
If there is a silver lining to Georgia missing out on 2026 quarterback recruit Jared Curtis — whose signing would have cost in excess of $700,000 — it’s that Smart has more funds to spread around on returning players.
The Bulldogs, like many other programs, front-loaded investing in the 2025 class with the settlement of the landmark House vs. NCAA case pending, as it brought about a $20.5 million cap that schools could directly pay student-athletes for usage of their Name, Image and Likeness.
Smart noted the challenge some of the front-loaded deals would bring when discussing last year’s signing classes.
“ … What’s going to happen when those people expect that same money the next year and it’s not there because you’re in a cap?” Smart said last April. “There’s going to be a correction eventually, and I don’t think any of us know what’s going to happen.”
What has happened is that Georgia, like other schools, is working to help secure NIL deals for student-athletes that meet the standard for approval required by the College Sports Commission’s “NIL Go” platform.
“We can now help our athletes really serve as a marketing agency to go out and source opportunities, whether it’s corporate opportunities, whether it’s local opportunities, whether it’s social media opportunities,” Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork said on Front Office Sports Today. “That’s going to be the next race.”
Per ESPN, more than 8,300 NIL deals worth approximately $80 million were approved between June 11 and Aug. 31 alone.
Keeping the culture
Name Image and Likeness deals, though not intended to be an incentive for recruiting talent or inducing transfers, certainly have had an effect.
But in a college football world dominated by high-profile transfers — including seven of the 10 Heisman Trophy finalists — Smart’s program continues to feature a culture built from within.
Indeed, the difference between Georgia and Ole Miss — its CFP Sugar Bowl quarterfinal opponent (8 p.m. Jan. 1) — is no less than stunning.
UGA recruits have made 90% of the starts for the Bulldogs this season, while nearly two-thirds (66.3%) of the starts made in the Rebels’ program have been made by transfers.
Perhaps it’s fitting that Lane Kiffin, the architect of the Ole Miss roster, has himself transferred in the sense of leaving his team for what’s perceived to be a better job as LSU’s head coach.
Building blocks
Indiana and Texas Tech — the next two most transfer-heavy teams in the 12-team College Football Playoff — took different approaches to free agency.
Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti has brought 13 transfers with him from his previous job as James Madison head coach, effectively replanting a team culture in Bloomington, Indiana.
Cignetti, like Kiffin a former Nick Saban assistant, was not like Kiffin when it came to cashing in on his success in pursuit of a better job, even while his name was among the hottest for the most high-profile jobs.
Cignetti, whose most recent portal haul included 23 players (including Heisman Trophy-winner Fernando Mendoza and veteran Notre Dame starting center Pat Coogan), re-signed an 8-year contract with Indiana that will pay him $11.6 million annually — this, after more than doubling his salary at Indiana with an extension worth more than $8 million annually signed the year before.
Texas Tech, meanwhile, has a roster reportedly worth some $25 million reportedly funded by prominent Texas Tech booster and billionaire oilman Cody Campbell, a former Red Raiders offensive lineman (2001-04).
Campbell, who founded the Double Eagle Energy oil and gas company, leads the school’s “Matador Club” NIL collective and he is the school’s Chairman of the Board of Regents.
The Red Raiders brought in seven of the top 75 players in ESPN’s transfer rankings.
It’s worth noting five of the top 10 ESPN transfers helped lead their respective new programs into the 12-team College Football Playoff:
• John Mateer (Oklahoma, ranked No. 1)
• Carson Beck (Miami, ranked No. 2)
• Fernando Mendoza (Indiana, ranked No. 5)
• Makhi Hughes (Oregon, ranked No. 7)
• Zachariah Branch (Georgia, ranked No. 10).
The Red Raiders will next face Oregon in the CFP Orange Bowl quarterfinal at noon on Jan. 1.
The Ducks’ roster is widely believed to benefit from the school’s well-known association with Nike co-founder and billionaire booster Phil Knight.
Smart said at the 2024 SEC Media Days: “(I) wish I could get some of that NIL money (Knight is) sharing with Dan Lanning.”
Campaigning for dollars
Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham openly campaigned on Saturday for $20 million in NIL money from someone — anyone — in the Phoenix community.
“We need to find one of these really rich people in this city to step up and stroke a check,” said Dillingham, whose Sun Devils missed making this year’s CFP field after winning the Big 12 last season.
“We live in Phoenix, Arizona. You’re telling me there’s not one person who could stroke a $20 million check right now? There is somebody out there who can.”
The funding required to compete for championships doesn’t stop with NIL dollars.
Per a recent story in “The Athletic,” this year’s College Football Playoff field reflected the four schools with the highest football budgets — not all calculated the same, the story notes — each made the field.
Total expenses submitted by the schools for 2023-24:
• Alabama: $112.2 million
• Texas A&M: $82.2 million
• Ohio State: $78.6 million
• Miami: $78.1 million
• Georgia: $68.9 million
• Oklahoma: $65.8 million
• Indiana: $61.3 million
• Ole Miss: $57.1 million
• Oregon: $53.9 million
• Texas Tech: $34.3 million
• James Madison: $15.9 million
• Tulane: $13 million
At Georgia, Smart works closely with athletics director Josh Brooks to stay within the proposed budget, while maintaining the necessary relationships with players, eschewing the trend of hiring a general manager.
“It’s still a relationship business for us,” Smart said last spring. “We find our niche in our culture, which is relational, and trying to have a relationship with somebody.”
