Kirby Smart's Roster Management Becoming Major Strength

If there is one thing that Kirby Smart has caught the most heat from during his previous five seasons as the head coach at Georgia — apart from not being able to get over the Alabama hurdle — it is his management of the roster. However, after snagging Arik Gilbert and Derion Kendrick from the transfer portal, it shows that Smart is starting to grow as a head coach.

There are numerous examples where certain position groups during previous seasons were very thin and would ultimately become a major weakness of the team during Smart's time at Georgia.

In 2019, there was an obvious issue at the wide receiver position. The entire passing offense rested on the shoulders of graduate transfer Lawrence Cager and true freshman George Pickens. It quickly became exposed while Cager was dealing with a shoulder injury and the Georgia passing attack seemed to become non-existent.

During that same season, Georgia was also holding its breath every time quarterback Jake Fromm took a hit as the guys behind Fromm on the depth chart were former walk-on Stetson Bennett and walk-on Nathan Priestley. Not exactly the most ideal quarterback room for an SEC football team.

There will always be struggles during every coach's first head coaching gig, but the determining factor for how successful a head coach will be is how quickly they learn from their mistakes. For Smart, it didn't take very long.

After going through a full season with multiple position groups dealing with issues on the depth chart, Smart and his staff immediately got to work on the recruiting trail. As a result of losing Fromm to the NFL draft, the Bulldogs reeled in graduate transfer Jamie Newman from Wake Forrest. Smart didn't stop there. Just a few months later, former USC quarterback JT Daniels announced he was transferring to Georgia.

Though Newman would never play a single down for Georgia after opting out from the 2020 season due to the ongoing pandemic and Daniels not playing until the seventh game of the season, Smart began displaying his willingness to change as a head coach.

It would have been very easy for Smart to bring in Newman and call it quits and roll with the graduate transfer, but because of Smart's determination on the trail, Georgia is now heading into the 2021 season with a veteran college quarterback versus starting an inexperienced redshirt freshman Carson Beck or true freshman, Brock Vandergriff.

However, the growth didn't stop in 2020. Going into the current offseason there was a glaring weakness at defensive back for Georgia after losing five secondary players to the draft and one to the transfer portal. So what did Smart do? He dipped into the portal and snagged former West Virginia All-America defensive back Tykee Smith, former Alabama defensive back Brandon Turnage and former five-star recruit Derion Kendrick from Clemson via the transfer portal.

Georgia hit another hiccup this offseason after junior wide receiver George Pickens suffered a torn ACL during spring practice leaving Georgia without their star receiver for an extended period of time. Smart refused to let that become an issue by grabbing Georgia native and star tight end Arik Gilbert from LSU.

If there is anything that Smart has shown over the past year, it's that he is learning from his past mistakes and is addressing any roster issues that he sees in the offseason ahead of time instead of allowing them to become weaknesses down the road when it is too late to fix. Smart has done a tremendous job at developing his players, but his own development should not be overlooked.

Kirby Smart's Roster Management Becoming Major Strength

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