Kirby Smart Builds Wall Around State of Georgia With 2021 Class
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart is one of the best recruiters in college football. One component to becoming a great recruiter is keeping talent from leaving the state, which Smart and the staff have historically done. Wednesday was no different, as the Bulldogs signed 10 Peach-State product plus another three prospects that grew up in Georgia before playing high-school football elsewhere.
There are other coaches in the SEC that have had less than stellar recruiting efforts within their home state. Dan Mullen at Florida, Jeremy Pruitt at Tennessee, Gus Malzahn at Auburn and Will Muschamp at South Carolina are all examples of this trend. It is noteworthy that two of these four coaches are now looking for jobs.
On the other hand, Smart has demonstrated that he can keep prospects close to home time and time again. Here are the top prospects in the state of Georgia along with where they ended up. Rankings are courtesy of the SI All-American team.
- No. 6 Smael Mondon, linebacker – Georgia
- No. 13 Amarius Mims, offensive line – Georgia
- No. 15 Brock Vandagriff, quarterback – Georgia
- No. 35 David Daniel, defensive back – Georgia
- No. 40 Barrett Carter, linebacker – Clemson
- No. 43 Nathaniel Wiggins, defensive back – Clemson
- No. 44 Cane Berrong, tight end – Notre Dame
- No. 53 Jordan Hancock, defensive back – Ohio State
- No. 94 Miles Campbell, tight end – Tennessee
Going off these rankings, the Bulldogs hauled in the top four prospects in the entire state. This is an exemplary job by Smart and Co., as this year more than ever they had to keep players in state. In previous years they could have hosted recruits on visits, visited the recruit’s home, and attended their high-school games.
However, the NCAA instituted a dead period that will last until April, not allowing any of this to happen. It is a likely reason that Maason Smith and Donovan Edwards aren’t wearing red and black. Both come from states where the hometown school has a pedigree of keeping top talent in the state, which was the case with many players across the nation.
Therefore, Georgia had to keep the in-state products in order to bring in the recruiting class that it did. Take the linemen for example. Georgia signed seven players who will play on the line of scrimmage, with four of those coming from out of state.
Another impressive thing about this class was the strategy that was put in place by Georgia. Its selling point to recruits for the class was that it was headlined by a dynamic quarterback. This tells these players that even though they will have success early because of quarterback JT Daniels, the success will continue afterward with Vandagriff in their class.
This plan allowed them to secure out-of-state difference-makers while focusing the bulk of their efforts on capturing elite talent within their own state. So while the scenario was different from previous years, the class in terms of talent and impact measures up with any other at Georgia because of the unique strategy employed by the staff.
