Georgia again led the country in its spending on recruiting, and that continued a theme from recent years that led to back-to-back national championships under Kirby Smart.

The Bulldogs spent just over $4.5 million on football recruiting during the school’s 2022 fiscal year, according to an NCAA financial report the athletics department provided Wednesday to the Athens Banner-Herald in response to an open-records request.

The SEC also puts several teams at the top, including Texas A&M at No. 2 at $2.98 million and Tennessee is No. 3 at $2.92 million, followed by Texas at $2.44 million and Alabama at $2.32 million. The numbers were gathered from documents obtained by the USA TODAY Network in partnership with the Knight-Newhouse Data project at Syracuse University.

In each of the last 4 non-COVID-impacted recruiting cycles, Georgia has spent the most money on football recruiting among public schools. However, the previous largest gap between the Bulldogs and the No. 2-spending school was the $1.04 million between Georgia and Alabama in 2019.