Kirby Smart reacts to increase in agents influencing college football decisions

Given the continued growth of NIL deals throughout college athletics — in both total number and financial figures — more and more student-athletes are relying on the guidance of sports agents. That’s especially true in college football, where high school players often arrive on campus with credentialed representation that were already involved their initial NIL deal just to put pen to paper.

And while there are certainly some unscrupulous “agents” out there, the majority are reputable brokers just trying to help their clients capitalize on their NIL opportunities. For his part, Kirby Smart understands that reality, even if the longtime Georgia head football coach would admittedly prefer a more equitable system to establish an individual player’s value similar to how the NFL does it.

“There’s definitely more agents involved in the process this year than previous years and it’ll continue to grow in terms of representation, but the agents are just doing a job just like I’m doing a job, just like the parents do a job,” Smart said Saturday following Georgia’s G-Day Spring game. “Their job is to protect their client, try to get the best deal or the best situation for their client that they can, and I understand that. That’s the business side of it. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

“I think it’s only bad when we don’t have a system that has comps. We don’t have a system that (says), ‘OK, this is what the comp is for a kid,’ (and) sometimes their comp and what our comp is are completely different,” Smart continued. “And obviously both sides are trying to slide things their way. That makes it really challenging. You don’t have that challenge in the NFL because it’s public knowledge and you know what you’re working off of. Nobody really knows in college football what teams are working off of.”

Look no further than Knoxville to see how chaos can develop out of a difference of opinion between a team’s evaluation of an individual player’s financial worth and how that player and/or their representation might see it. That’s effectively what led to this weekend’s surprising divorce between Tennessee and Nico Iamaleava. The redshirt sophomore quarterback was seeking to renegoiate his current NIL deal — reportedly valued between $2.2-2.5 million according to On3’s Pete Nakos — and an alleged $4 million price tag his representatives were reportedly seeking earlier this Winter, per ESPN insider Chris Low.

Kirby Smart considers whether House settlement will impact transfer portal ‘spiral’

Kirby Smart gave an honest take about the impending House settlement and whether it will impact the transfer portal chaos in college sports. The Georgia head coach simply didn’t think it would have as big of an effect as some believe.

In fact, it could increase activity with more, and at least a standard, amount of money to go around. Now that the tube of toothpaste is open, it’s hard to put it back in at this point.

That’s the way Smart views it anyway. But in any event, Smart and Georgia are at the cream of the crop of college football, so they might not necessarily have the same issues even as other Power Four teams.

“I don’t know that the House settlement is going to have any effect on the flow of players because that’s not really what the House settlement is meant to do,” Smart said. “It could increase it if more teams have money. I think it’s hard to say what’s going on in our league, how that will impact things in the future, I can’t foresee that. I think it’s been spiraling and it’s continuing to spiral. So, I don’t know what reigns it in. 

“I don’t know that there’s anything anybody can do to reign it in. It is what it is. You have to manage your culture as good as you can. You have to manage the players you take as good as you can. And you’ve got to move on and play with the players that are there. I really don’t concern myself much with it. I just focus on the guys that are here and the guys that we can get to be here, and not worry about the ones that don’t want to be here.”

— On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this report.