Kirby Smart defends Georgia's $4.5 million total for recruiting spending

USA Today does some extensive reporting on some of the financials behind college athletics, and an April report on the figures for college football recruiting spending drew plenty of interest.

Two-time defending national champion Georgia lapped the field in 2022, dropping $4.51 million on recruiting spending.

But coach Kirby Smart attempted to clear the air a little bit at the annual SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., on Tuesday when asked about the large spending total.

“I think there’s a little misnomer to that,” Smart said. “I don’t think that; you’d have to really study the numbers, and I don’t know how much you guys dig into accounting methods. But we don’t have a school plane, so start with that. If someone has a school plane, let’s say they take 100 flights on that plane. They’re not counting those 100 flights. We might take 100 flights that we purchase. So our recruiting numbers are imbalanced based on that.”

That’s certainly a fair point and would explain some of the gap that Georgia has on other programs, including many SEC peers.

The next closest in the SEC when it comes to recruiting spending was Texas A&M, checking in at $2.98 million.

Smart reiterated that while the accounting methods might cause some differences in recruiting spending, he does believe the Georgia program is just flat-out committed to being competitive in recruiting.

“Now, do we spend on recruiting? Absolutely,” he said. “Does the SEC spend on recruiting? Absolutely. Is it necessary to be competitive? It is, and our administration has been great about supporting us.”

Of the top 20 in recruiting spending for 2022, seven teams from the SEC made the list. So, too, did Oklahoma and Texas, with both schools set to join the league in 2024.

Smart defended Georgia’s recruiting spending.

“The numbers that people put out, some of those were eye-popping and -catching where some people are counting, their methods, a lot differently in terms of, especially, flights, which is our No. 1 expense,” he said.

“I want to be efficient. We make decisions and we’re conscious of budgets, and we try to be smart. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to compete.”