New Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s decision to place restrictions on RB A.J. Turman’s transfer request became a national story.

It’s a change in philosophy for the Bulldogs, who previously followed an open transfer policy under the leadership of long-time coach Mark Richt.

Smart isn’t interested in letting players go to schools within the conference or on the Bulldogs’ future schedule.

The new Georgia coach received the backing of legendary Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer, who retired following the 2015 season, on that line of thinking.

Beamer was recently in Athens to participate as a speaker at the Georgia coaches clinic, and his son, Shane, is now on the coaching staff at Georgia.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Seth Emerson caught up with Beamer to get his opinion on this transfer subject:

“The thing that’s fair is that they’re not going to a school within your conference, or a school that’s on your schedule for the next four or five years. To me that makes sense,” said Beamer, whose son Shane is now one of Smart’s assistant coaches. “And after that if they weren’t happy at Virginia Tech I wanted to do all I could to make them be happy somewhere else. Our first thing was to make them happy at Virginia Tech.”

But national pundits are hung up on the reported decision to block Turman from transferring to Miami, where Richt now coaches. It does not fall into either category.

It’s not a huge deal in the Turman case, as he reportedly doesn’t have interest in playing there, but it could be an issue for future transfers.

Georgia RB Sony Michel conceded to Emerson that Smart’s rules are the rules that everyone must now play by when they join the program, but he believes this to be more of an isolated circumstance rather than a trend:

“I don’t think any guys on this team are really talking about transferring, because the things these coaches have in store for us in the future,” Michel said. “Once they finally realize what these coaches have in store, then I don’t think any guys will think about transferring.”