Georgia Football Is Prepared For NIL Era
Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs have put in the work to become the standard in college football recruiting. Dozens and dozens of recruits that we have talked to at Dawgs Daily on SI.com have mentioned that no coaching staff comes across as more genuine than that of UGA and several high profile targets have also mentioned that no program is any more consistent in their approach to recruiting than Georgia is.
No matter who the main recruiter of a UGA prospect is, when we at Dawgs Daily on SI.com ask the question of what the relationship with Coach (fill in the blank) is like, the answer is very similar each time. It usually goes something like, "Coach (blank) is a great guy. He's going to keep it real with you and not just tell you what you want to hear. He cares about you as a person and is genuine. It's a lot about life and not just football."
While Georgia has seemed to hire quality men to help advance their program and build relationships with recruits that turn into talented Bulldogs, a new challenge and a new element of life is fast approaching. Name, Image, and Likeness legislation and policy is going to occur sooner rather than later. In the already heavily recruit centered world of college football, schools are going to have to find a way to ensure student-athletes that they are going to be able to not only provide a quality education, not only provide excellent facilities and a program that can develop players' skills, but also that they are going to be able to help players establish and grow a personal brand.
Georgia has already begun to incorporate this into their recruiting. Javon Bullard, Malcolm Johnson Jr., and Marcus Burke are just a few recruits that have had personalized logos incorporated into edits sent to them from the UGA recruiting department. Having a logo, something the public can identify your 'brand' by will be import going forward with NIL.
Also, several recruits have mentioned that Georgia's recruiting approach includes pitching the proximity to Atlanta. This is helpful when describing the connections of the Alumni network for after graduation or life after football in the corporate and business world, but now it also puts potential Georgia players in a great position to have great access to marketing opportunities and also a major hub of both international and domestic business, as well as television and music production.
The possibilities are endless. A lot is yet to be determined on the structure of NIL in terms of legality and the ties to NCAA eligibility. However, two things that are certain are that UGA is already preparing for it and that Kirby Smart is as competitive as they come and will only look at NIL in recruiting as another aspect to trying and become the best at.
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