Georgia Head Coach Chimes in on Increasing Influence of Player Agents in NIL

NIL has been the hot topic in college football over the weekend, and Georgia Bulldogs' head coach Kirby Smart voiced his views on the increasing influence of player agents in negotiations.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart speaks to the media on the first day of spring practice in Athens, Ga., on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. / Joshua L. Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

NIL has been making some serious headlines over the past few days, even more so than usual. This mostly stems from the saga that unfolded between the Tennessee Volunteers and their now former quarterback in Nico lamaleava.

Long story short, Iamaleava and his camp were looking for a significant NIL increase from Tennessee ahead of the 2025 season, and felt that the best way to go about getting that would be to hold out of practice ahead of the team's annual Spring Game scrimmage on Saturday.

Volunteer's head coach Josh Heupel made what many are saying is the right call, and decided to part ways with his former five star quarterback, signaling to everybody that no one player is bigger than his program, and that he wasn't going to allow lamaleava to essentially hold the team hostage.

There was plenty of debate that sprung from this shocking series of events, but one of the more interesting revolved around the role of agents in NIL, and how they are reshaping the entire landscape of college athletics in their own right.

Enter Georgia Bulldogs' head coach Kirby Smart, who like many prominent figures in the sport has long held concerns over the way NIL has transformed college athletics.

When it comes to the topic of agents however, Smart realizes that this has just become par for the course. According to Alex Byington of On3, Smart doesn't think there is anything inherently wrong with the with players choosing to have outside representation.

“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."

While Smart may be onboard with the concept in general, he also recognizes that things can quickly get out of hand when the system doesn't allow for two sides to come to an accurate consensus on the value of a player.

“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 said.

There are clearly shades of the Iamaleava debacle in what Smart is referencing here, as it's very evident that the two parties involved there had very different views on what the soon-to-be junior was worth to the program.

Ideally a new system will be coming along in the near future that will put much of this murkiness to rest, but in the mean time the influence of agents on NIL dealings is only likely to continue growing.

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