Georgia didn't sign a QB in the 2023 class, Kirby Smart explains why
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia didn’t add a quarterback in the 2023 class and there’s more than one reason why. Kirby Smart took the podium on Wednesday to talk about the group he signed when he was asked about not reeling in a signal caller and the affect it might have had on the rest of the class.
“I think it’s irrelevant in today’s day and age. The portal is full of them. There’s going to be multiple guys in every year. You want to do the best job you can to get the best quarterback you can,” Smart said on Wednesday when asked about not taking a quarterback in the 2023 class.
“When you have three quarterbacks, sometimes you don’t have any. And when you have one quarterback, that’s when you have a quarterback. We’re very pleased with what we have in our quarterback room. We think we’ve got three quarterbacks that are going to be really good, so the concern wasn’t about a quarterback.”
It’s not that the Bulldogs didn’t try. They took a big, healthy swing at Arch Manning. It came down to Georgia and Texas with Manning choosing the latter over the summer. Georgia also extended offers to quarterback prospects like Marcel Reed and Jackson Arnold. It didn’t pursue Reed all that heavily and it got into the mix with Arnold well after he had locked things in with Oklahoma.
But the Bulldogs clearly had a plan. The group they have on campus is teeming with talent and they didn’t need go outside their comfort zone for a quarterback. Carson Beck has grown by leaps and bounds during his three years at UGA and is the favorite to win the job next season.
Brock Vandagriff is the highest-rated guy of the bunch and could be in for a year-three surge like Beck experienced. Then there’s Gunner Stockton, a true freshman who has created more buzz in a shorter amount of time than Beck and Vandagriff combined.
As for the affect not signing a quarterback to headline the class and help recruit had on this haul, the impact appear to be large at all. Relationships with the coaching staff and personnel are always a bigger factor than having commitments help recruit the class but Smart also gives a lot of credit to the offense that Todd Monken has built at UGA.
“…none of the skill players made it about that because they know what we’ve signed the last really three or four years. They know what we have the potential to sign in ’24,” Smart said. “So it’s one of those deals that the quarterback position kind of sells it based on who your offensive coordinator is and how your offense does, and we’ve excelled in that.”
