Kirby Smart puts importance of in-state recruiting on display

If there’s one thing that Kirby Smart understands as a head coach, it’s the importance of in-state recruiting. While having a national brand like Georgia has is great, Smart knows he must protect the Bulldogs’ backyard with the kind of talent that comes out of the Peach State annually.

“I still will argue that our state supplies the highest NFL players per capita because we have such great football in our state,” Smart told On3’s Andy Staples just last month. “It’s one of those things that haunts me all the time: who are we missing that’s going to develop into a great player from our state that we may be missing out on? That’s hard. There’s no exact science to that.”

Need proof of its importance to Smart and his staff? Look no further than what they did on Friday, making trips all across the map of Georgia, hitting every corner and over 70 high schools in just a matter of hours on their #FirstDayOut.

“It’s important. The relationships, those are the same guys that are developing the guys in our state and know the kids in their area,” Smart told Staples about the idea of going to schools of all sizes across the state, even if they aren’t going to end up producing a player for Georgia in the near future. “They might say, ‘Hey, there’s this kid over here at this place we think is a really good player.’ We value their opinion. We think the best evaluators in all of recruiting are the high school coaches who interact with these kids every day. They’re giving us the real truth, not the made up truth. I enjoy listening to them, and I want their trust and we want them to help get their players to our place.”

Georgia signed the nation’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class in 2024, the eighth straight top-3 class from Smart during his time in Athens. It was his third top-ranked group, and while only nine of the 28 players hail from inside the borders of the Peach State, that hasn’t always been the case for the Bulldogs.

Early on, contributions came from guys like Richard LeCounte, Jake Fromm and Andrew Thomas – a trio big time, in-state recruiting wins for Smart in his first full class. Others like Quay Walker, Nolan Smith (at IMG Academy at the time of signing but originally from the state), Travon Walker and Tate Ratledge came along later between the years of 2018 and 2020. Of course there were also more under the radar guys like Christopher Smith, Daijun Edwards, Ladd McConkey and of course Stetson Bennett that ended up having some of the biggest impacts for the Bulldogs.

Recently, the in-state strength has shown itself in the Class of 2021, Smart’s proclaimed “COVID-babies.” With no ability to take visits during the pandemic, the ties in-state were strong, and Georgia was able to land four of the top-five products from its own state. Amarius Mims was ranked the No. 1 player in state, and he was joined in Athens by Brock Vandagriff, Smael Mondon and Nyland Green as well. Micah Morris was also a top-10 in-state product while the likes of Dylan Fairchild, Chaz Chambliss, Javon Bullard and others were outside that range, and we’ve seen the way they’ve all paid off as a part of championship winning teams.

Looking at 2022, 2023 and most recently 2024, guys like Mykel Williams, Malaki Starks, Oscar Delp, CJ Allen and KJ Bolden stand out. There are others too. And while not every in-state signee works out, it certainly feels Georgia is hitting at a high rate on those evaluations.

“I love getting kids from the state of Georgia. If I could sign every kid from the state of Georgia, I would love to do that. That would be great. That’s not realistic. It’s just not,” Smart said on Signing Day. “Some years our state provides us speed, athleticism. Some years it supplies us size. Some years it doesn’t have a good — I don’t know what the right word is — it doesn’t have maybe a sample size of that position, so you’ve gotta go search outside of that.”

“You know, you go where you go. You go find the players. A lot of times it’s their interest level in us. We don’t target states and say we want to get one from this state or that state … We usually know that long before now. So from the ’25 class, we can tell you the strengths of the state. Just like these guys, I call GMs all the time, and they say, ‘This is a great linebacker class, but it’s not a great corner class in the draft.’ It’s the same thing for us in our state,” he continued. “So we know what we’ve gotta go out and look for outside that. We don’t look at where you’re from. We look at who you are, how you compete, how you behave when you’re here, what do people say about you, and what your makeup is.”

Recruiting is far from over for Smart and the staff after Friday’s adventures. A big weekend in Athens is expected with a large and loaded group of visitors coming to check out the Classic City as UGA hopes to make a splash already in the Class of 2025.