Kirby Smart’s 14-Year-Old Son Has 3 College Offers Before His First High School Game

Before Andrew Smart takes a varsity snap, the file on him is already thick.

At 6-foot-2 and 191 pounds, Smart looks older than the typical high school freshman. He already has three reported college offers, including one from Georgia's in-state rival, Georgia Tech. And he carries a last name that opens doors in this state without even a knock.

All of which can make it easy to forget one thing.

He's 14.

Three Offers Before His First High School Game

Georgia coach Kirby Smart's son arrives for his freshman year at Athens Academy with the kind of attention most players don't receive until their junior year — if they receive it at all. His throwing videos are already circulating online. The hype has arrived early, and so have the offers.

And, his first high school game hasn't.

What Happens When the Lights Come On?

The Spartans open play Friday night, at home, at 7 p.m. Andrew's role when the lights come on is, for now, an open question. Will he start, play situational downs, or will the first-year students be allowed to ease into varsity speed? Or will the freshman be given time to adjust to varsity speed?

That answer belongs to Athens Academy's head coach Josh Alexander, and those decisions may matter more than any of the offers are worth. The highly anticipated prospect version of Andrew Smart's story practically writes itself. It's the one nearly everyone is already telling: how good he might become, who his father is, which program offered first and, inevitably, what about Georgia? It's the kind of recruiting attention most high school seniors can only dream about.

Being a Freshman With a Famous Last Name

But there's another, more interesting version of the story.

It asks what a season actually looks like for a ninth-grader when recruiting coverage and expectations arrive before his team even takes the field. It asks how a program manages the attention while handling the ordinary business of letting a freshman be a freshman.

Most freshmen don't have the expectations typically reserved for a NFL draft pick. At the end of the day, they're dealing with the same things most students do. Don’t run in the hallways. Where's the cafeteria? Did he remember to take out the trash?

Kirby Smart: ‘He’s Got a Long Way to Go’

Kirby Smart, perhaps unsurprisingly, has offered one of the better reminders of where all the hype around Andrew actually stands. “He's got a long way to go,” the coach said at SEC media days when asked about his son. It’s a very Kirby-like response, but it's probably the most important any of us could carry into this season.

Friday nights supply the spotlight. The last name supplies the attention. But the story that matters isn't simply about the arm, the offers or the father coaching a national title contender in the stadium across town.

It's about the 14-year-old — and how much of that he gets to be.

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