Kirby Smart joins Josh Pate - Pate State Speaker Series

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Josh Pate's College Football Show
Episode: Kirby Smart joins Josh Pate - Pate State Speaker Series
Release Date: May 5, 2026

This episode features a candid, wide-ranging conversation between host Josh Pate and Georgia head football coach Kirby Smart. The discussion dives deep into the rapidly evolving landscape of college football—touching on the transfer portal, roster management, NIL (Name, Image, Likeness), playoff expansion, recruiting philosophy, team development, coaching challenges, seasonal rhythms, and Smart’s perspective on the future of the game.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Transfer Portal & Roster Continuity

[02:50 – 06:11]

• Roster Stability Post-Portal: Kirby outlines how the closing of the spring transfer portal adds certainty for programs like Georgia that don’t heavily rely on late transfers.
  • “We have not been a big second portal team... Going through spring practice, to me was much more enjoyable because you didn't have this big dark cloud brewing of was he going to be here?” (Kirby Smart, 03:06)
• Impact Across College Football: While Georgia’s roster saw little change, other programs scramble to fill holes post-spring.
• Data-Driven Approach: Kirby notes that their study showed “over 80% of the people had no impact” in the second transfer window, suggesting much movement is lateral rather than transformative.
  • “You just took somebody else's two or three and they took your two or three... all they were doing is moving to move.” (Kirby Smart, 05:02)

2. The NIL Era, Mental Health, and College Experiences

[06:11 – 11:47]

• Developmental Roots and NIL Caution: Josh Pate raises concerns about players never building lasting roots and later regretting it. Smart agrees, noting future mental health challenges for athletes who move often and experience early but unsustainable financial success.
  • “The mental health issues that will come out of this 15 to 20 years from now, that doesn't mean it's right or wrong... I worry about when they get in the real world and they don't make that.” (Kirby Smart, 07:05)
• Isolation and Early Wealth: Newfound independence isolates players, which Smart believes is “not good for your mental state of mind.”
• Financial Education and Long-term Value: UGA puts effort into “realistic ways to invest and make money”, but turnover hampers lasting alumni connections.
  • “If they don't invest in real estate with that money they make, they don't go in with maybe an alumni...I feel like we did a good thing. But so many of the kids move so quickly that they don't have an attachment to a university.” (Kirby Smart, 09:42)

3. Changing Nature of Recruiting: Relationships vs. Transactionality

[11:47 – 13:47]

• Then and Now: Recruiting used to be “90% relationship” but now is balanced 50/50 with transactionality, regardless of background.
  • “Everybody's a financial family...maybe it's 50/50. And I tell our coaches all the time, get me at least 50% relationship...because once it teeters on the other side, it doesn't end well.” (Kirby Smart, 12:20)
• Kirby’s Standard: “If we can get it to 50% relationship...then that's pretty good.”

4. Peaking at the Right Time, Roster Aging, and the Effects of Playoff Expansion

[16:24 – 25:56]

• Indiana’s Example & Season Management: Josh and Kirby analyze Indiana’s surprising success, crediting older roster age and peaking post-Heisman.
  • “It's going to be a great study to see how that moves forward, because a lot of people are going to copy that model.” (Kirby Smart, 17:37)
• SEC Schedule Intensity: The addition of a ninth SEC game increases attrition, strains depth, and forces programs to play more young players.
  • “The wear and tear right now in our league and with us playing that extra SEC championship game, that was like the ninth game...it's the combination of everybody's leaving. Your sophomores or your freshmen actually are your twos in a lot of places.” (Kirby Smart, 22:07)
• Practice Scaling & Young Player Challenges: Reduced practice intensity means young, paid players must contribute earlier and with less physical prep. Building depth is riskier as more experienced teams consistently excel (Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana).
• Resource Allocation Models: Some teams prioritize paying top 55-60 kids; Kirby prefers a developmental route, valuing sustained growth over splashy cash.
  • “We've been a much more developmental...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.” (Kirby Smart, 26:07)

5. The Hometown Discount and Program Value

[27:10 – 29:58]

• Myth of the Home Discount: Smart admits the “hometown discount” is less real now—agents and families almost always “want a value for their son.”
  • “I don't think people take offense to that. When you're talking to the agent or the recruiting world, they want a value for their son.” (Kirby Smart, 27:42)
• ‘Find the Right 22’: Kirby’s pragmatic: “There’s thousands of them good enough out there. The difference in the top thousand players—I just need to find 22 that want to be here.” (29:58)

6. Payroll Era and Concerns for the Sport’s Future

[32:46 – 33:37]

• Direct Payroll Talk: Josh jokes that if you showed 2016 Kirby a clip of this year’s discussion about payroll scale, he’d be shocked.
  • “Payroll scale, yeah...To think where it's going is scary for me. I want these kids...to be compensated...I just want to protect their mental health and protect their ability to graduate and protect their investment strategies.” (Kirby Smart, 33:01)

7. ‘Outcoached’ Games – What It Really Means

[33:37 – 36:13]

• Defining ‘Outcoached’: For Smart, being outcoached involves opponents using their personnel and schemes better, not just winning.
  • “Use of their personnel, how they did things defensively...They have answers for what you do. They respond to something you do well, and maybe you don't have an answer for that.” (Kirby Smart, 34:04)
• Ole Miss Playoff Example: Smart credits the opponent’s players with critical plays, not simply coaching tactics.

8. The Search for Hidden Gems

[36:13 – 37:58]

• Trinidad Chambliss Story: Example of a player who emerged from obscurity to star—a story every staff seeks, but difficult to replicate.
  • "Hell, no, I didn't know who he was at the start of the season....It's very similar for us with Stetson Bennett..." (Kirby Smart, 36:49)

9. Playoff Expansion Debate

[37:58 – 42:29]

• Access vs. Scarcity: Josh likes a smaller field for urgency; Kirby pushes for expanded access, seeing bowl games as devalued and playoff access as the new currency.
  • “We've made it that way [bowl games don't matter]. So if we're going to make it that way, we might as well put more in it and get everybody in and let them go play.” (Kirby Smart, 39:25)
• Consistency and Program Identity: Kirby is aware that expansion may enable hot teams to disrupt year-long consistent contenders, but he favors inclusivity for both competitive and fan-engagement reasons.

10. Spring Practice, Depth, and Internal Focus

[42:29 – 43:58]

• Spring Review: Smart is “very pleased” with spring progress, especially giving more reps to freshmen and sophomore ‘threes’. Some positional depth concerns persist, but the main focus is maximizing what the team has, not what it lacks.

11. Coach Downtime, Detachment, and Life Balance

[44:33 – 45:58]

• Work-Life Balance?: Offseason for Kirby means “never without a phone.” He sees the necessity of staying plugged in due to recruiting and the speed of change in the sport.
  • “I'm never without a phone. I'm not throwing that phone away just because of how fast things happen and how much information gets digested quickly.” (Kirby Smart, 44:52)
• Media Days Sunburn Test: Ending with humor, Kirby says sunburn level at SEC Media Days doesn't predict the season:
  • “No, I don't enjoy being sunburned...I think it's measured on how good your players are and less about how much time you spend in the sun.” (Kirby Smart, 45:38)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the futility of late portal moves:
  "All they were doing is moving to move." (Kirby Smart, 05:02)
• On long-term outcomes for transient, NIL-rich players:
  "It makes you feel like a failure when you go out and you made more in your first three years of college than you do the next 20 years of your life." (Kirby Smart, 07:05)
• Value of relationships in recruiting:
  "Because once it teeters on the other side, it doesn't end well." (Kirby Smart, 12:20)
• On the new reality:
  “Payroll scale, yeah...It is crazy. And it is. To think where it's going is scary for me.” (Kirby Smart, 33:01)
• On coaching priorities:
  “We're going to develop our players better than they develop their players...And in the fourth quarter, when you have to stop the run to win the game or you have to run the ball to win the game, that's how we're going to beat you.” (Kirby Smart, 43:58)
• On the limits of downtime:
  "I'm never without a phone. I'm not throwing that phone away just because of how fast things happen and how much information gets digested quickly." (Kirby Smart, 44:52)

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Key Timestamps

• [02:50] Start of core discussion – transfer portal & roster
• [07:05] NIL, player movement, mental health concerns
• [12:20] Recruiting: relationships vs. transactions
• [17:37] Indiana’s old roster & team-building model
• [22:07] Impact of 9th SEC game, injuries, roster attrition
• [26:07] Portal philosophies and paying for value
• [29:58] “Find the right 22” and undervalued players
• [33:01] Payroll talk and what would shock 2016 Kirby
• [34:04] Defining “outcoached”
• [36:49] Trinidad Chambliss, finding the next unheralded star
• [39:25] Playoff expansion philosophy, bowl game value
• [42:47] Post-spring practice reflections
• [44:52] Detachment, downtime, and the ever-present phone

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Final Thoughts

This episode artfully captures the complexity and rapid pace of modern college football from the perspective of one of its preeminent head coaches. Kirby Smart’s transparency about the challenges of roster management, player well-being, competition, and organizational strategy offer valuable insights both for fans and for those interested in where the sport is heading. His blend of skepticism and optimism, along with Josh Pate’s sharp, probing questions, make for a rich and compelling listen—even if, like Kirby, you never really get to turn your phone off.

Transcript

[Kirby Smart]

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[Kirby Smart]

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[Josh (Interviewer)]

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[Kirby Smart]

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[Kirby Smart]

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[Josh (Interviewer)]

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[Kirby Smart]

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[Josh (Interviewer)]

You and I are sitting right here this time last year and we were talking about all the changes happening and you were like the one thing I would love to just know is I would love to know who's going to be on my team in spring. So now we're at the place where we don't have the whole post spring portal. How has that changed the dynamic around your program?

[Kirby Smart]

It's interesting you say individually to our program. I think it's changed very little because we didn't lose many guys in the second portal and we did not take many guys in the second portal. We have not been a big second portal team. I think it changed a lot in college football because sometimes teams tried to Revamp their roster at that point in time. So I think going into January, from the point, I don't know the exact date that the portal closed, let's call it January 10th or 15th, whenever it actually closed from that point on, man, you could dig deep. You could actually have connection meetings. You could do all these things to build your team because you knew that your team was your team now. You didn't know about injuries, you didn't know about this and that. We had some new guys on our roster. We had 26 new freshmen, we had eight new portals. So, like, with all that going on, we had new people, but at least knew they were ours. And going through spring practice, to me was much more enjoyable because you didn't have this big dark cloud brewing of was he going to be here? Is his agent going to his agent going to shop him around, is he going to leave? Is he going to lose transfer hours and not graduate? Like, it scares me to death dealing with that second one. And I do have some deficiencies in my roster that we would have gone out and gotten other people. So we gave up something to. To gain a little continuity. And I think the players have better relationship with each other because they know they don't have the worry, Josh, of man, should I go? Should I call mom and dad? Like, coach, where am I going to be out on the depth chart? Like, quit worrying about that and just get better. Because running to another school is not going to just save you by doing that.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Well, that's what I was going to ask you. I mean, there are a lot of places, Georgia, but pretty much every place probably just went through spring and at some point on the roster said, man, I wish we were a lot better here. And I know if we had a post spring portal, we could get a little better there. But you know, you're sitting here telling me, yeah, I know all that. But then I got to remind myself, hey, the alternative sucks a whole lot more than me maybe not quite having the depth at outside linebacker, left tackle that I want.

[Kirby Smart]

Exactly what I'm telling you. I'm also telling you the sanity of knowing that now it's you coaching against me and me coaching at you who makes their players better. That's what the word coach is like. It's derived from Stagecoach where you took somebody from one place to the other. So, like, where are you taking your players instead of shipping them off and importing them? And to be honest, we did a big study on a lot of the portal exchanges in the second portal. And there was Very little effective movement, meaning I call it swap and spit. You just took somebody else's two or three and they took your two or three and then you traded and all you got was a new person. You didn't necessarily get somebody that now there's guys that maybe made an impact. People can go out and say, well he's wrong. They had two or three people that made these huge impacts and look at the totality of who moved. Okay, I'm going to tell you now, in our study, over 80% of the people had no impact. So all they were doing is moving to move, they were just moving to move. And we're like, let's, let's make our players better and let's say the ones we lifted and practiced all last winter, that they're ours now and they're better now because they stayed here.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

You know what I have a lot of trouble with is you get the whole piece of what should and shouldn't be and that's what people waste most of their time arguing about. But if you take that and set it off to the side, just what is, is what is right now. So you got a lot of movement, you got a lot of churn in the sport. I wonder if we hit fast forward 15 years, it's 20, 40, I'm pretty sure we're going to have a large group of players who are 15 years removed from their career, who never really planted developmental roots anywhere and they moved around a lot and they probably made a little bit of money relative to your lifespan. A little bit of money, a few hundred thousand dollars that's long since been burned by that point. And you're going to have documentary after document guys doing what we're doing right now, saying to whoever's talking to him, man, I wish that I would have had 40 year old me's perspective and I could have just stuck it out a little bit. But at the same time it's really hard to have that conversation with a 19 year old person who has at that time life changing money being put in front of them.

[Kirby Smart]

Everything you said is true and I wrestle with it all the time because I am not a person that believes kids should not be able to transfer, that kids should not be able to move. They're more transient than ever. They can up and go, they have, they have a vehicle to so many schools through social media, they have friendships with all these kids at all these places. So it's a completely different world right now. But I promise you in 15 years there's going to be if you just take the body of, I'm not talking about student athletes. You just take the body of the highest nil guys and they had an earning power, whatever that earning power was, of X amount of money for a short amount of time. They need to maximize that. What people will say, that's their earning power. You shouldn't apologize for what they make. The mental health issues that will come out of this 15 to 20 years from now, that doesn't mean it's right or wrong. Doesn't mean that they should be capped or they should not have this or that. I'm just telling you I'll watch it. We have more kids now living by themselves. We have kids who live in a dorm or an apartment their first year on campus. What most schools do, 90% of the colleges start you off on campus and you have friends, you have roommates, they go out and buy apartments because they can. Number one, that's very wasteful. Number two, it's not good for your mental state of mind to not live with someone. I mean, your hardest years of college will be your first two or three when you're out there struggling to play and now you're dealing with self doubt, living by yourself, questioning things. I have watched it go through all these kids and I'm just, I worry. So I don't worry about the money, the money they make. Most of them have financial managers, most of them will have people put that money away. I worry about when they get in the real world and they don't make that. And the argument against it is, well, that's good, that's their earning power. They had that opportunity. It makes you feel like a failure when you go out and you made more in your first three years of college than you do the next 20 years of your life.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Yeah. The other thing is if you're older than like 30, you've kind of grown up. If you're a college football fan and your perception of the head coach of a major program is like this general who, you know, gives a command and everyone in the building follows it. There's some realities to that. But then what you're talking about is you could probably, you know, disseminate messaging and wisdom all you want to. But then there's the reality. If guys have money, they're going to do what they want to do outside this building. And at the same time, you're not even sitting here talking about the morality of it, the right and wrong, the legalese of it. You're just talking about things that you technically can do that. Maybe it's not the wisest thing to do. And I got to imagine that's a tough message. It's a tough message to get across to full grown adults, much less 18, 19, 20 year old kids.

[Kirby Smart]

Really hard to. Because I don't think they have the foresight to know that income is probably not going to be sustainable. Like, it's just not. You're like, well, they're going to make the NFL. Even if they make the NFL, it's two or three years and there are players taking pay cuts to go to the NFL. You know, we know what league minimum is in the National Football League. So it's like, okay, they might make that for four years of college, they might make that for three years in the NFL, but long term, they're not. So we're trying to teach financial wisdom. Sometimes it goes in one ear and out the other. I have convince myself we have got to show them realistic ways to invest and make money. And we bring speakers in to do that. I mean, we all talk about tax education, financial education. We're all like, we're so invested in that now than we ever were before because we see the pitfalls, we see what they're, some of these kids are spending that money on. And that's the part I feel like, man, I'm failing these guys. If they don't invest in real estate with that money they make, they don't go in with maybe an alumni and say, hey, this guy's building an apartment. He wants you to be part of this. You know, you graduate, you should jump in with him and make your money. Make money then. I feel like we did a good thing. But so many of the kids move so quickly that they don't have an attachment to a university. I mean, what's going to be home 10 years from now? Where are you going back to when you went to three different schools?

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Well, that's the other thing. If I played right guard for you for four years, hopefully I made it to the league. But even if I didn't, I know there are some folks that I've known from the time I was a sophomore in high school to the time I was in school, to the time I was out of school in that alumni network that I could probably call for

[Kirby Smart]

the rest of my life who, you know, over what you know is way more important. Okay, now people say, well, no, you could never, you could never make that kind of the people you meet in alumni and you go out and use those resources at any school, you're at huge. Oh my God. They put you in one deal, they give you one opportunity, and that opportunity makes money far greater than we're talking about on the average median nil guy. Now, there's kids that are making generational money in college football now. More power to them. And those make hard decisions. But for the most part, all the kids aren't making that kind of money.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

How have you seen the relationship, the concept of the relationship change over, let's say your last 20 years, you're at Bama, what, 07? Something like that. So we're coming up on 20 years of just that kind of run where you've been at two programs. And it was back in the day in recruiting, all about relationships. And you know the kid and you know the kid's entire extended family. And I know there's still a version of that, but also the other version is sometimes it just comes down to a bottom line conversation, a transactional based conversation. Well, where does the balance of the concept of relationship fall in all that?

[Kirby Smart]

Yeah, it used to be, I mean, let's be honest, it was all relationship. I would have said 90% relationship, like 10% development. All those years at Bama and then the early years at Georgia, my role was different because now it's head coach, not defensive coordinator. But it still was relationship based and I'll definitely change that. But it didn't change it to a 9010 flip the other way. You know, it's still interesting to me when you start recruiting someone and some of our coaches that have been with me for four, five, six years, they figured out, I can figure out within the first two months, months of recruiting a junior sophomore, if they're a relationship family now everybody's a financial family. Everybody. I mean, it doesn't matter what kind of money where you come from. That does matter. But maybe it's 50, 50. And I tell our coaches all the time, get me at least 50% relationship and then 50% the other, because once it teeters on the other side, it doesn't end well because they're also the first to look for raises. They're also the first to look in the portal. They're also the first to leverage, to leave with an agent and leverage you to get more money. So like if we can get it to 50% relationship starting off and stay there, then that's pretty good. But it has changed, definitely. But it's not like people think where it's like it's only the bottom line number. There are families, there are people out there that want the development, they want the relationship. I mean, I got a nephew going through recruiting right now and the first thing my sister said to me was like, well, I don't want it to be just a number. I want it to be a relationship, you know, and that matters to people.

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[Josh (Interviewer)]

I watched Indiana do what they did last year, and I watched in amazement. And I. It's similar. Like in my world, when a. When a show blows up, I can't help but view it through the lens of what I do and view it a little bit comparatively. Not in a sense of. I'm measuring myself against them, but I'm wondering, are they doing things that I need to be doing? Are they with some advanced practices maybe or whatnot? How do you watch something like Indiana happen last year? Like, how do you view that?

[Kirby Smart]

Yeah, I think it's. I didn't. I couldn't really view it in the season. You're so engulfed. I'm worried about, you know, Alabama. I'm worried about everybody. We're playing and I don't get to really watch it. And then you step back and kind of in the playoff run, you start looking back going, wait, they're doing something different here. Like, woo, woo, woo. Everybody doubted and doubted and doubted, and they didn't doubt. They never doubted. They had complete confidence, and they played really well. I think what you're seeing in college football right now, at least among the people I talk to, everybody's like, well, well, what did they do? What are their practice faces? I mean, Coach Signetti is very open about being short, fast, not being on the field long, being really sharp. That's interesting to me because we try to be short, but we try to be really high energy and go really fast, not be on the field more than two hours. They were less than that sometimes.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Yes.

[Kirby Smart]

They were an old team. Everybody's like, well, they're an old team. It's going to be a great study to see how that. How that. How that moves forward, because a lot of people are going to copy that model. Do they have Fernando Mendoza? Do they have some of the players they have great scheme, too. I mean, you talk to the coaches they play against, defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator, do an incredible job. Kurt is a incredible game manager. I mean, he worked for Nick like I did. He knows the ins and outs. So it's very interesting to see is that going to continue? Was it the. Was it the magic formula or was it a really good group of players? Because, I mean, they did things defensively, they did things offensively. They. They didn't just like, win close games. They beat people. Yeah.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

I think what stood out to me the most is they got a guy that wins the Heisman Trophy and then probably plays his best ball after winning the Heisman Trophy, which is pretty synonymous with whoever's winning these days. They're peaking at the right time. And so. So there's a weird way to ask this question because it almost sounds like I'm saying, well, man, do you back off a little bit to start the season and then hit the gas late? There's this fine line of wanting to enter the season full speed, but also understanding the ones who are playing their best at the right time are the ones who are going to win national championships. Back in the day, you couldn't afford to lose a game. Right now you can afford to. There's a little bit more safety net under you. How does that change the way you as a coach prepare and how you like structure organizationally, how you approach a season?

[Kirby Smart]

Yeah, I think it's starting to take more and more shape. We're figuring this thing out. Right. We're at 12, expecting to maybe go up in years in the future, but we're still trying to figure the 12 out. And I can tell you when you start looking at the 12 and you're like, okay, two times we've gone and lost the first game. Both times after winning the SEC championship, you have to start saying, are you peaking too early? Are you complacent? Like, you look in intrinsically to say, what are we doing wrong? What could we do better than. You look at everybody else and you're like, who's the hottest team? Who's playing well? Who's got this and that. The common denominators, me are crazy. I mean, it's a lot of portal quarterbacks that have won or been in the final four. It's a lot of peaking is playing well. I don't know in our conference that you can take the approach of. Let's grow into it because there's a. You know, there's. There's game one, sometimes game three in our league, game four, that if you. You missed out, you can be out

[Josh (Interviewer)]

of the Texas last year.

[Kirby Smart]

Yeah. I mean, you can't do it. You get to the point where you can't lose anymore because of the way the committee bases things. They're going to base it on just losses. They're not looking at the total body of work. They're going to look at the loss column. And when you get near that number, you have to win. You better be Peeking in or you're not going to have a chance to where Basketball, baseball, those, those, those tournaments in the NCAA have played out differently than ours has now. It's not what it was because when it was four, it was over for sure. Like you mentioned, we've been a part of that where we got bumped two or three times because of the SEC championship game. But now it's like, well, you really just need to save up and be hot when you need to be hot. And I don't know, we've been a better team in our weekly rhythm of having to play on the, I say short weeks on a regular week than we have on the buildup for the last couple, last couple times. And I do think there's a totality of playing that sec, you know, eight game schedule and going on the road and playing that you are, you can become physically beat up. I mean, we lost the center. It was a really good player in the, actually in the Georgia Tech game leading up to the SEC championship. And that was after a 5, 6 week sec run. That was really tough.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

You were, I'm going to get back to the playoff thing in a second. You were talking about the whole, the whole concept of adding a ninth game. I remember being at the SEC championship game last year, knowing both teams are beat to death and you're watching the game and it does not feel like a game that's being played at the speed the SEC championship game is normally played at. And afterwards you won it, you stepped to the podium and you kind of said, guys, this is the entire SEC next year. Everyone's playing a ninth game next year. Now people outside the gate will look at that and say he's baking in an excuse. People inside the gate will say, I agree with anything Kirby Smart says. I happen to think like there's a lot of reality to it because it's one thing if you know you're going to be favored by double digits in 10 out of your 12 games, you can afford to kind of ramp up. But if you take that approach, maybe against teams you're still probably better than, but the gap's a lot smaller. You just end up a three loss team in November. And you know full well you could win that tournament if you get into it, but the committee ranks 15th and you're out.

[Kirby Smart]

That's exactly the way it goes. And, and I, I will forever be an enthusiast and people can criticize all they want about other conferences. I welcome them if. Thank you. Let them come join. Just come on in and join and water Ours down a little bit and give us some. Some games that maybe you can win with a breather, but it doesn't happen in our league. I mean, look at the, the best people to ask. I always say this is. Don't ask me. Don't ask somebody in the Big Ten. Don't ask somebody in any other conference. Just go to the NFL scouts. Don't go to the NFL coaches. A lot of the coaches have a bias. A lot of the coaches only watch a player. But the scouts go watch the practices. They go all across the country. Go poll the national scouts for each NFL team and you tell them where the best competition is and you ask them where the best competition. Not necessarily always the best team, but the best competition as a whole. Best players. And the wear and tear right now in our league and with us playing that extra SEC championship game, that was like the ninth game. I'm glad we're in that game. I love playing that game. But now that we're going to go to nine and then have an SEC championship, I saw last year because even coming out of the Georgia Tech game, we were beat up, banged up. Alabama comes out of the Auburn game, beat up, banged up in the injury reports going to the game, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is a shell of itself. Well, if we took our rosters from 2012 and 2015 and done those, we'd have been fine. It's the combination of everybody's leaving. Your sophomores or your freshmen actually are your twos in a lot of places. I mean, we started two freshmen o linemen. I've never done that. Was it because they were that much more talented or we were that less depth? And when you take the depth away and look, we practice different now, people are like, well, you can't practice as hard. We don't practice as hard as we ever did now we cut back. It's the volume games and the number of quality players we have is less. And so those two end up with more injuries and you get probably a little less. You know, we're not as good as we've been in years past, but I don't think anybody else has either.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Yeah, here's the rough part to me is you've never probably played more young players than you do, more inexperienced players than you do. We were just talking a second ago about peaking at the right time. To me, the hallmark of a lot of those teams is they're continuing to get better during the season. Well, if you're talking about shaving or maybe scaling back what you do in practice now, relative to what you used to, it makes it a lot tougher to improve as much as you would have over the course of a season. And so you add all that in with the schedule you're playing and you make a lot of money. So no one feels bad for you. But I mean, is that, is that not something that I'm looking at? I'm saying, well, we'll just get better over the course of a season. That's a lot harder said than done.

[Kirby Smart]

Yeah, a lot harder because you don't, you don't actually get the work that you used to get quality wise. You do a lot more walkthroughs, you scale back things, but you're trying to get a younger player that you're paying more money, ready, faster. So at the end of the day, there's this dilemma among coaches of do I pay the bottom part of my roster, let's call it the new guys, a lot of money and I got really good young players, but they can make mistakes. Or do you go with this old model which has been the three last national champions now? They've almost been the oldest team in college football each year. The Michigan, Ohio State and Indian. I'm not going to say they're the oldest, but they're close to it. All right. And you can take that model and say, I'm going to get older players, I'm going to age and I'm going to beat your younger players with my veterans who stronger, probably more reliable, maybe not as talented. But at the end of the day, you're having to make a decision as a coach. Are we paying the bottom part of our roster? Are we trying to get somewhere in the middle? I mean, some people have taken through. They only pay 60 players because in the, in the College Football Playoff they did a bunch of studies and you know, 54 to 55 guys played in each game.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Yeah.

[Kirby Smart]

And so if that's the case, let's just pay them a lot of money and save the rest to sprinkle in some money for the rest. Almost like walk ons. And I'm going to have more quality, not more quality players. I'll have less quality players, but the quality I have is really good. But you have no depth, you know, and when you lose somebody, you can't go pick them up like you can in the NFL.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Do you find that you have a quote unquote portal philosophy, a quote unquote revenue share philosophy, or do things change so quick that the thing evolves like 30 or 40% year over year.

[Kirby Smart]

Yeah, I think it evolves quick. I don't think we could say we have a true philosophy. I mean, obviously what we need, we needed some whiteouts a year ago when we went and got Zach Branch and some of the guys we picked up, that was a need. But every year it's different. And it changes so fast because it's changing so fast in the, in the money department, you know, the revenue share department, how you chop up your rev share, how you get outside money, how other people get outside money. A lot of schools are just taking the approach, I'm gonna go pay whatever I gotta pay for a great player. There's only so many five stars, right? And whether they're a five star or not is debatable, but there's only so many of them and they're right most of the time. So if you go buy enough of those and then weed out the ones that don't work out, meaning by year two or three, I get them off the books, they're gone somewhere else. They're not playing, they're pissed off, they're disgruntled. That's the model that gets you the best player. At the end of the day, where we've been a much more developmental, 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, that's a developmental route versus a purchase route. But it changes fast.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Like you mentioned, you've also got, and I don't know to what degree this is true, but I've always viewed you and maybe a few others out there as having a little bit of a hometown discount baked in because you've proven yourself. And guys know, even if I take a little bit less to stay here, the exchange rate is what I'm getting while I'm here. Ohio State could pitch that, like, a few places could pitch that. How true is that? How true is it where you set it? You set a number and say, I'm not going beyond this. I know you could get twice this somewhere else. Make your decision. And the decision is Georgia.

[Kirby Smart]

I would like to believe that. And I hear people say that. And it used to like our coaches after the first two national championships, and then I was just in, in its infancy, I would say there was this hometown discount or this, you know, uga, I'm going to get NFL status. Discount. I don't, I think people take offense to that. When you're talking to the, to the agent or the recruiting world, they, they, they, they, they, they want a value for their son, they want a value for their representative. The agent represents the player and they're not looking for that. Well, we, we spend money. People, people come all the time, say we're probably fourth or fifth in the SEC in spending money. We just want to find, like, we want to find the best value along with the best kid. And sometimes in our state, there's a player that's X and this player over here is demanding X. And the players aren't that far apart, but they're that far apart in money that we choose to say, you know what, he knows who he is, he knows what he wants and he's going to develop well. And we think he's an undervalued player because he's been on our campus four times. He's from Atlanta, Georgia, and we're going to bring him over here. And I'm not going to go out and pay some crazy premium on a risk because at the end of the day, every player we bring in here is a risk. Okay? It's an investment. We're putting a lot of money, a lot of university's money into these kids. I want a more solid investment. And it's hard to say the difference in these kids is 200,000, 400,000. But if you ask mom, dad and agent, it's, how do you value my son? It's not about value for me, for your son. It's about, we're going to pour into him. We're going to put so much into him. So much effort, energy, toughness, practice development, all the things they want off the field. Education for life. Education. Like that's what I want you to see. You're getting a value on. And I don't want you to have to take a discount. Okay? A discount might be a little less than year one or two. We have, we have traditionally paid our players junior, senior year as much as anybody at those positions. We don't on the start because I want you to earn it and work your way up. And you know, that's been a. People hear that all the time in recruiting. They want to use this a negative to us. And I just let it go. I say, look, we're going to find the right people. We only need to find 25, we'll need to find 22. 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.

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[Josh (Interviewer)]

I was just sitting here thinking, you've been here like 11 years. Now. If I were to frame the last two and a half minutes of your answer and put it on a screen and play it for you in 2016, this is how you're going to be taught in 10 years. Just imagine the last answer you gave. You're talking about a full payroll scale.

[Kirby Smart]

Payroll scale, yeah.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

And just openly talking about it's crazy.

[Kirby Smart]

It is crazy. And it is. To think where it's going is scary for me. I want these kids. I mean, they work hard, they earn a lot of money for the university, they get great TV deals. I want them to have the opportunities you want to have. I want them to be compensated for it. I just want to protect their mental health and protect their ability to graduate and protect their investment strategies. And if we put more checks and balances in for that, I'm great with it. I have no problem with what these kids make and what they do. I just want them to make good decisions with it and we don't have control over that.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

I'm going to switch gears a little bit. You don't say this much, but I've heard you say a few times over the years, usually in a loss, you'll step to a podium, post game, you'll say, look, we got out coached today. Normally a fan or someone in media just says that when you lost, we don't have to back it up.

[Kirby Smart]

They just say it.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

When you say so and so out coached us today, what specifically, other than the final score are you seeing that indicates they out coached us today?

[Kirby Smart]

Well, use of their personnel, how they did things defensively. I mean, I'm thinking about last year, you know, we lost to Alabama, you know, at home and they played better than us. They just played better than us. They had a good plan, they really executed well on third down. Meaning we brought pressure at times, didn't get home in time. The quarterback executed at a high level, made some big time throws and you know, if you turn the ball over, I don't think that you got out, coach. Yeah, that's just not true. I mean, if you, you do certain things that you don't do in your characteristic of your team, that's just circumstance. They, they beat us. Sometimes you physically get beat, but sometimes I do think you get out coached. And I don't think that all our losses at Georgia, since I've been here, we've been out coached. I don't think that at all. But I do think that's happened. Some people do a good job. They. They have answers for what you do. They respond to something you do well, and maybe you don't have an answer for that. It' and somebody's one step ahead of you and you feel like you're always right just behind in what you do.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

How would you describe the playoff game against Ole Miss? Is it the former or the last? How did you feel when you were leaving that venue about the job your

[Kirby Smart]

staff did, getting ready for that, good and bad? I mean, look, there were, there were two or three calls we made defensively that were the perfect call. When you bring a corner cat and they don't pick it up and the cornerback runs 20 yards back and runs around and then finds a completion, that's not our coach. That's either out recruited or just outplayed by the kids. They made tremendous play. They played with tremendous passion in the second half. Tremendous belief. So, you know, that's not, that's one play that. There's two plays there in a row that kind of defined our game where their quarterback made elite plays. I mean, he just played unbelievable. But, you know, there's things we did well offensively. We scored on defense. When you score on defense, scoop and score, you're not supposed to lose game games. You know, you fake a punt and you're not supposed to lose games. But they did a great job. I, you know, I think Pete and his staff did a tremendous job in that game. I wouldn't say that was necessarily out coaching. I would say that they definitely outplayed us when it mattered most. They won. Critical moments. The red area in that game was critical.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

What is it like when you're watching a guy like Trinidad Chambliss, who I don't even know that he's on your radar when the season starts and you may end up playing that team. You know, Austin Simmons, you know who their starter is. I mean, as far as, you know, as far as I knew most people were paying attention to the fact that Lane went and got a kid from, from D2 to maybe be a depth provider, and then he's pressed into action and then you watch what he does. And I, I thought he was the most dangerous player in the entire tournament by the time the tournament started last year. What is that like to watch? And then what does it say in your mind about. I wonder if any of those are out there right now. I wonder if there's some more of them out there.

[Kirby Smart]

Everybody in the country's trying to find one of those. I mean, it was a great job by them and their staff. I don't know who to give the credit to because I'm involved in it, but to say I even knew he was at the start of the season, Hell, no, I didn't know who he was at the start of the season. How would I. He was the backup quarterback. Austin Simmons had come in against us the previous year and had an unbelievable drive down the field. All we were talking about was him, you know, and then when we were getting ready to play him, we still were watching tape on them. The first game where Austin Simmons was playing, he played in the Kentucky game and he got injured. And, you know, sometimes as coaches, you learn a lot. It's very similar for us with Stetson Bennett, because we did everything we could to not start Stetson Bennett. He was on the bench for a lot of games, and he was probably the best quarterback. When he was on the bench and had things not happen like they did, Maybe we don't ever start him. Maybe when Carson Beck was getting ready to start before Stetson Bennett, and then he got a little injured, Stetson got to go out there and play, and he took off and went. That's really the story, what Trinidad did, and everybody's looking for that story. Yeah, but it's funny because I go to our guys all the time, like, can we not find a guy that's, like, athletic, got another year left, and, you know, bring them in here to compete and, you know, pay him some money? And it's like everybody's looking. I mean, everybody's looking for that magic story.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

You. So you. You've talked a whole lot about future of the playoff size recently. I always hate anytime someone talks 2014 playoff. However, if I were probably an SEC head coach, I'd probably advocate for it. So, like, I get the stance. What do I have to do to talk you off of that? Basically, is what I want to know. What's your.

[Kirby Smart]

What's your. I'm not. I'm not pro 16 or 24. I'm. I'm pro more than 12. But what. What is your stance against the 24? Well, watering it down. It is.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

It basically. Last year we had multiple teams. Miami is an example. I watch them lose against Louisville. Yeah, we'll watch them lose against smu. I'm okay with a tournament that's Just big enough where that can be allowed and you still got a shot. Anything more, and I'm watching early season games and they're. They're more television products than they are something that I have to be tuned into, something with urgency, something that puckers you a little bit in the fourth quarter. I think expanding, frankly, beyond 12, but especially way past 16, does that. Now, the. I know the counterpoint to that. The counterpoint is. Well, I mean, if. If the currency is playoff access now, and we're trying to sell playoff access, then the bigger the playoff, the better, the more fan bases are invested. I know we're a little ways down that road. I don't think we're so far down that road is my. Is my whole point that you have to just forever expand the thing because essentially you are ignoring value and scarcity. I still think there's some value and some scarcity.

[Kirby Smart]

I agree with all those. I just don't know where that line of demarcation is. Because you're saying, okay, we went four, there were 12. Now you're saying, okay, is it 16? 24 is too many. I don't know where the line is drawn on that, because for Miami, who legitimately now, I won't say should have won, but could have won the national championship, they could have won it. They had two losses to teams that are really competitive. I mean, they're competitive to them in their conference, but maybe they're better than. They shouldn't lose those games. They had two games they shouldn't lose. And I think I feel like for 10 years I've been here, if you lost two games you shouldn't lose. You're gone, you're out. But they were good enough to win it. Why does that not stand for basketball and baseball? Because they lose games they shouldn't lose all the time. It's a different sport. They play way more often. Their games are less meaningful than our games. And I don't think that we're. I do think that we're going to make our. Some of our games maybe less meaningful, less impactful, but they will still matter in the grand scheme of things, especially towards the end of the season. So I'm a fan of 16 to 24 because of what you said, the currency and what we're measured by as coaches. I want to get my team in there as an opportunity. I want my fan base to be engaged. And it's gotten to the point now that if you're not in there, there's no value in a good old bowl game. Let's go play over in this bowl game and let's send out the seniors and let's give them whatever the name of the bowl is. And nobody cares about that anymore. We've made it that way. Way. So if we're going to make it that way, we might as well put more in it and get everybody in and let them go play. And then, you know, does anybody even play a game outside the playoffs? Because the kids are disinterested past the playoffs, the fans are disinterested past the playoffs. Now the value for you is you got a lot more meaningful games during the year when that thing's 12 or 16 because somebody's getting bumped at the end.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Yeah, I just always looked at it like some people's philosophy is we should have the bubble big enough where any team that's capable of winning it, if they get in, is in. I've always looked at it and said, I don't really view it that way. If you're good enough to win it and you earned your way in the bubble, then I'm fine with it. Otherwise, you're just reinforcing my point that, man, they lost some regular season games they shouldn't have lost. That's why there was maximum emergency on that. But see, the difference with me is I don't view the playoff as the nucleus of the sport. I'm a regular season guy and whatever the playoff is is more the cherry on top for me.

[Kirby Smart]

But I, I, I agree with that. And I think in our model, our program, I mean, I want to say this because as you say this and it'll come back to haunt you, but we, we've had a model of consistency. Okay, we, we lose games, but we haven't lost a lot of games. We're not supposed to. Right. And so if you're that kind of program, you want that thing nice and tight, you don't want these outsiders getting in that could get hot. I've always told people, I was like, some of these teams, they can play with anybody on any given side Saturday, but they might not get up for every Saturday. And that, that to me is a, like that, that errors on the side of, well, you want it to be 12, you want it to be less than 12, you want it to be 4, because you're not letting somebody in that could go in there and just win the thing and take off and get hot. But I am a fan of, of, of a little more access.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

You just wrapped up spring a few weeks ago. I look from the outside, I Say, man, I think tight ends like the deepest position on that team. So I'm not really going to ask you about tight end, but outside of tight end, I know there were a couple of injuries, guys out. Feels like most of them may be back by summer or fall camp. What was your feeling coming out of spring ball?

[Kirby Smart]

Very pleased. Was happy to get the amount of work we got. We did some things different this spring than we've ever done in our practices. We tried some different drills competitively to try to grow our depth. We gave more reps to our threes, which, you know, people like, I don't have threes. Well, our threes are like freshmen, sophomores. Some freshmen moved up during that process. But like, we dedicated more time to them. And if you were a two year starter or it played over, you know, three 400 snaps in games, in SEC games, then we had a little lighter load on those guys and I was very pleased with the work we got. There are some positions that I wish we could go out and say, oh man, I wish I could get a veteran here, a better leader in the room here. But we have, we have good players and I think it's all relative to who we're going to play. Right. But I feel good coming out of the spring about the injuries and things.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Well, what's wild is if I'm sitting at Georgia, if I'm you, I've got 20, 21 me to compare my modern day self against. So you, you're probably coming out of spring. I know because I've talked to you the past few springs and you're like, we got deficiencies here, here, here. And then you end up winning the SEC and you're like, I guess we didn't really have to compete against ourselves five years ago. We just had to play the teams we line up against.

[Kirby Smart]

That's the key. You got to play the teams you line up against and you got to be able to beat them and get worried that, oh man, well, they beat us on this kid, they beat us on that kid. And you're going to play somebody that beats you on these kids, at the end of the day, concern yourself with what you have, not what you don't. And we try to really focus hard, like we're going to develop our players better than they develop their players. We're going to be tougher with our players than their players. And in the fourth quarter, when you have to stop the run to win the game or you have to run the ball to win the game, that's how we're going to beat you. And we've been good at doing that, but in really tight margins lately.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

All right, last question here. We got like three months, I guess, or so until the season starts. How many days will you spend completely detached from this place? And when you're, when you're somewhere, maybe you spend five minutes on a beach. Are you a throw the cell phone in the water kind of guy or are you checking it every five minutes kind of guy?

[Kirby Smart]

Oh, yeah, I'm on my phone. I have my phone all the time. I won't say I'm on it all the time, but I'm access to my phone. There's never a time. And I'll step up away. We'll have three weeks in July where I'll get reports of like, okay, this is what's going on. You know, coaches will be in the office, but I'm not physically here. I'm not mentally, like checked out a little bit other than I'm recruiting. Got to be on my phone, right? Updates of what's going on with our players and how they're doing conditioning wise and what's going on with those guys. That's important to me. But outside of that, get some time with the family, enjoy time. But I'm never without a phone. I'm not throwing that phone away just because of how fast things happen and how much information gets digested quickly.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Are you a believer that the more sunburned the coach is at media days, the better the season's gonna be?

[Kirby Smart]

I don't know if I could say that because I don't, I don't enjoy being sunburned. So there's probably some of those guys that get it from golfer on the beach and sometimes they fake and they get the fake spray. We got a few of those guys in our league, too. You probably know they are, but I, I don't, I don't care for that. I think it's measured on how good your players are and less about how much time you spend in the sun.

[Josh (Interviewer)]

Kirby Smart, we appreciate it.

[Kirby Smart]

Thank you, Josh.

[Jacob Goldstein (Odoo Advertiser)]

Thank you.

[Kirby Smart]

Appreciate it.

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