Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs won’t be visiting the White House this summer to meet with the President and the First Lady.

The Bulldogs said Tuesday in a statement they won’t be able to make it to Washington, D.C. on June 12 for “College Athlete Day.” The program said the date doesn’t work with their schedule, and Smart clarified to The Athens Banner-Herald on Wednesday that declining the invite was not politically motivated.

“It’s a tough deal,” Smart said. “Timeline-wise it didn’t work. Traditionally, I went 3 times when I was at Alabama and it was right after the game. That didn’t happen.”

It was reported in February that the White House was looking forward to welcoming Georgia to celebrate its last 2 national championship victories — the program didn’t make the trip in 2022 either — but Georgia said no formal invite had been extended nearly a month later when spring ball opened.

UGA said in a statement to The Banner-Herald on Tuesday that the invite landed on May 3.

“We didn’t have a date set and we’ve got 700 kids at a football camp at our place June 6, 7, 8. It’s the number one time for recruiting for football coaches,” Smart said. “You’ve got 600 to 700 kids coming to your campus, you can’t leave to go to the White House and have no one on your campus. So the time just didn’t work out. There was nothing political about it. I’ve been before. It’s very educational. It’s a great experience.”

The last college football champion to visit the White House was LSU in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic put the tradition on hold, and it appears that trend will continue for at least another year.