Georgia doesn't just have the best players. Kirby Smart has built the best organization of developers, motivators and coaches, too

The Georgia Bulldogs recruit the best players. They’re loaded with 4-and 5-star talent. They’re bigger, stronger and faster than any team in the country. 

Just ask TCU. 

But Georgia didn’t become the first back-to-back national champion in the College Football Playoff era — with the biggest blowout in any title game history with its 65-7 annihilation over the Horned Frogs — simply because Kirby Smart hoarded all the top talent. 

That’s an insult to the commitment, drive and work ethic of all those blue-chip prospects. If just having many of the best players guaranteed success then Texas A&M would’ve at least made a bowl game in 2022.  

That narrative completely dismisses the reality that Georgia has become college football’s preeminent program at evaluating, developing and motivating players, too.

How do you leapfrog the master? By building the best organization, talent included, and mastering the margins.  

Nick Saban is still the top coach in the sport. Alabama is still the kings of recruiting. But his padawan has become CFB’s current chief because Kirby Smart took the ‘Bama blueprint, stamped a big black G on it and assembled the best coaching staff — from recruiting personnel, to nutritionists, to player development, to off-field analysts, to strength & conditioning, to position coaches, to coordinator hires — in America. 

Smart has built a terrifying juggernaut because the Bulldogs don’t just out-talent teams, but they out-develop, out-motivate and out-scheme opponents, too. It’s not some secret sauce. Every program strives to do it. Only, it’s super challenging to assemble all the right ingredients. Yet by utilizing every available resource, Smart has hired good people for nearly every department, positioning Georgia to continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. 

Georgia’s recruiting stars certainly mattered Monday night against TCU, yet the Bulldogs’ best players were former unheralded prospects like quarterback Stetson Bennett, who accounted for six touchdowns, corner Javon Bullard, who had a pair of interceptions and a fumble recovery, and wideout Ladd McConkey, who torched TCU’s secondary for 88 yards and two touchdowns. 

“All programs also recruit. The truth lies somewhere in the middle,” Smart said in a media session before the title game when asked about Georgia’s process of recruiting top talent vs. developing talent. 

“It’s a narrative that gets put out there. But I tell our players about it all the time. Our best players on our team are not our most highly rated players. We’ve got four or five guys that were not (highly-rated). They’re really good football players. TCU has a team full of really good football players. And I watch those guys play and the way they play is so much more important than worrying about high school. Who cares?

“Our players respect football players, and they respect football players on our team, whether they were a two- or three-star.”

That’s development. 

Georgia was 15-0, opening the year with a 46-point win over Oregon and capping the season with a 58-point rout over TCU. If you listened to any Georgia player this year, though — even at halftime of the title game where Bulldog players were heard screaming “0-0” heading into the locker room up five touchdowns — you would’ve thought someone was constantly insulting their mama. 

The Bulldogs were fueled by disrespect, manufacturing grievance and doubt as if being the preseason No. 3 team was an affront to all those who repped Red and Black. 

"They thought we were gonna go 7-5, we end up perfect. I can talk trash now cause I'm done. I'm a #Dawg for life and I will always be a Dawg."
A DGD indeed. Nolan Smith, what a joy to cover you. #CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/wjmeV5hxIO

— Maria Martin (@Ria_Martin) January 10, 2023

A year ago, Smart’s in-house psychologists used the famed Cortes story of burning the boats to help propel Georgia to end a 40-year championship drought. 

“We’re all we’ve got. There’s no going back. It’s fight together.”

This season, the mantra was about maintaining that hunger and drive. Chasing more success. Smart’s allegory? Remember Blockbuster? No? Go be Netflix. Do what others claim isn’t sustainable.

“The disease that creeps into your program is called entitlement,” Smart said. 

“I’ve seen it first hand, and if you can stomp it out with leadership. We can stay hungry. We have a saying around our place, ‘We eat off the floor.’ And if you’re willing to eat off the floor, you can be special.”

That’s mastering motivation. 

In the build-up to the national championship, much of the talk centered around TCU’s unique 3-3-5 defense challenging Georgia’s offense, and how the Horned Frogs would use tempo to tire out Georgia’s defense.

Only strike that. Reverse it. 

The Bulldogs had every answer for the Horned Frogs’ plan, with Todd Monken cementing himself as the best schematic offensive coordinator in the country. 

Monken dialed up shot play after shot play, putting Bennett in great positions to create explosives to wideouts, tailbacks and tight ends. He lined up all-world tight end Brock Bowers in more than half-a-dozen spots to confuse TCU’s defense, and it was Georgia’s use of the sugar-huddle that gassed the Horned Frogs. 

Smart’s decision to hand UGA’s offensive keys to Monken after the 2019 season was a major component as to why the Bulldogs have won consecutive championships. While Smart’s defense is still considered the driving force of the program, Georgia’s offense has become among the best in the sport, as Monken has taken all those talented toys and actually put them to use with creative window-dressing and innovative play-calling. 

Defensively, Georgia wasn’t a historically dominant unit after losing five 1st Round draft picks, but the triumvirate braintrust of Smart, Will Muschamp and Glenn Schumann still built a defense that suffocated most opponents each week, including Heisman Trophy runner-up Max Duggan and TCU. 

“The staff, Coach Monken and his offensive staff, Coach Schumann and his defensive staff, and the special teams staff, wow, every week they brought it,” Kirby Smart said complementing Georgia’s entire staff. 

“They brought a great plan. They brought a unique plan and made the most of the players that we have.”

Early in the season, Smart said Georgia’s staff was “the best its’ ever been” because “of the group’s alignment.”

“We’ve always had a good staff, but we’ve got a really great staff right now in terms of guys enjoying the work together and putting plans together, and I thought they did a great job of doing that,” Smart said just two weeks into the 2022 season. 

As important as all that talent on the roster is, Georgia’s organizational structure — from the staff’s ability to evaluate, develop, motivate and scheme up its best players — is an integral ingredient in the Bulldogs’ championship success.

That total package is exactly why Kirby Smart said “we’re not going anywhere” — four years before Georgia ever won a title. 

The padawan always had a plan, and now that his organization is firmly in place, don’t expect Georgia to go anywhere anytime soon.