Kirby Smart aims for 70% retention rate of Georgia signings

Ever since Kirby Smart took the job as Georgia‘s head coach, he’s continued to stack up his resume with an assortment of accomplishments, most recently winning back-to-back national championships. Smart recently sat down with another coaching great, former Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, and during their conversation, Smart detailed some interesting information regarding his most recent rosters.

“Last year I think we had 15 draft picks and nine guys chose to leave, so we went into the offseason last year losing 24 players, 15 of which were drafted, nine of which decided to go in the portal. And we didn’t take one kid out of the portal going into last year’s season so we had to replace that with all freshmen, there’s no transfers in there,” Smart said. “Which that’s what made it so unique to have the great year we had, very few people can say they lost 15 draft, nine portal, didn’t take one and then still had a good football team, so we had good depth.”

Georgia’s 15 draft picks in the 2022 NFL Draft set a new draft record for most players drafted from a single college team in a year. And combined with transfer exists would create a substantial depth issue for most teams, but not the Bulldogs. Georgia went undefeated on their way to another national title, doing so solely on the strength of their returning talent and their 2022 freshman signing class.

“Now moving to this year we don’t know how many we’ll have drafted, it won’t be 15 but we’ll have some guys drafted. We lost some guys in the portal, we did take three this year, we took two receivers out of a position of need, but I’m really big on getting the core of your team from high school, developing them the right way, and it really boils down coach K to who you bring in your organization,” Smart said.

The Bulldogs brought in wide receivers Dominic Lovett and Rara Thomas and defensive back
Deyon Bouie from the transfer portal this offseason, all from other SEC programs.

They’re projected to lose another handful of players this season to the NFL Draft yet again. And yet again they will rely on the talent that’s been developed in-house for the past few seasons, as Smart revealed the magic number of success when it comes to retaining players in his program.

“Because if they come in looking to leave or they come in expecting to only play as a freshman and have it easy, then we probably recruited the wrong guy, they’re not gonna keep them there. I really think keeping your players, at least 70% retention rate is going to allow us to be different if we can keep 70% of the guys we sign,” Smart said.

It will surely be interesting to see if the Bulldogs can defend their title yet again with Smart’s same roster and development strategy. But for now, Georgia is focused on spring practice, as their annual G-Day spring game is set for April 15.