Kirby Smart spoke with Paul Finebaum this week at the Regions Tradition golf tournament, and the ESPN commentator shared the interview on Friday.

Smart addressed a wide range of issues facing college football, from name, image and likeness, to the transfer portal and tampering. Finebaum asked Smart if there’s any way to manage tampering.

“It’s part of the game,” Smart said. “I don’t believe there’s as much tampering as people think. I think there are kids who grow up thinking if it doesn’t work out here, I should go somewhere else. Tampering comes from the player that’s searching somewhere else, not from a coach reaching out.”

Smart shared that he knows it happens because players reach out to him from other programs, and he can’t talk to them.

“I don’t worry about tampering as much as I worry, are we doing the right thing for kids when they have adversity or when things are tough, to be able to walk away,” Smart said.

Smart said that if the 15 players who recently left Georgia for the NFL thought that they had a chance at another program, they would have missed out on a national championship. They would have also missed out on graduating, and getting to the NFL Draft.

“I think those things are critical to success,” he said.