Kirby Smart reveals why one position took precedent in this recruiting class

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is fresh off a SEC Championship game performance in which is defense was blow-torched by the Alabama offense and their Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, Bryce Young. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Georgia placed a priority on defensive backs for their 2022 recruiting class. On Wednesday, Smart talked about the attrition at the position for the Bulldogs over the past year.

Smart on the low numbers of defensive backs on his roster

“Yeah, we don’t have enough DBs now. I don’t know what you would be referring to. I don’t know how many are in there. I just know what’s in and what’s not in. We don’t have enough. We’re still lower than we’ve ever been in terms of our defensive backs….” Smart said.

“We’ve got more leaving than we’ve got coming in. We were already below. So if you have more leaving than you have coming, you’re actually negative net gain….” he said.

“It’s been tough for us this year because we’ve not been able to play a Dime package. We’ve not been able to do some things we want to do, like get six DBs on the field. I am really proud of the DBs in this class that we have, but we’re not anywhere near where we’re used to being,” the Georgia head coach said.

“I think there’s seven that left since the last year. Then you throw in the seniors–those are kind of the core group of guys that have been here forever–that are now finishing. You add that seven plus four or five; that’s a one year window of 13 or 14 guys. So, in my mind, we’re still short numbers of scholarship players,” he said.

His quotes are telling of just how difficult roster management is for coaches

One thing is for certain, the transfer portal has drastically increased the difficulty of managing a roster in college football and college basketball today. Nobody will shed any tears for the coaches making millions of dollars, but simply put, managing a roster is flat out impossible now with the current transfer portal rules.

The lack of a penalty of sitting out a year means players will immediately go to where they will be promised the most NIL money. Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin even equated the transfer portal to free agency. He’s 100 percent right. Clemson’s head coach, Dabo Swinney, has said the portal is “total chaos”.

Georgia has some help on the way from their 2022 recruiting class: three five-star defensive backs: Malaki Starks, Daylen Everette, and Jaheim Singletary. All three are currently rated five-stars by On3. Starks is listed as an athlete, but many people are projecting him as a contributor somewhere in the secondary. The Bulldogs also have four-star defensive back Julian Humphrey and three-star safety JaCorey Thomas coming in for their 2022 recruiting class.