When the name “Travon Walker” came out of Roger Goodell’s mouth on Thursday night to start the NFL Draft, Kirby Smart added another notch to his ever-growing belt.

A guy who wouldn’t have even made the Mount Rushmore of players on his historically dominant defense went No. 1 overall. Time will tell whether Jacksonville will regret rolling the dice on Walker instead of the more productive Aidan Hutchinson.

For Smart’s sake? That’s somewhat irrelevant. At least for now.

For now, Walker just became a powerful, unique recruiting flex for Smart.

I know what you’re thinking.

“How much better can Smart really get as a recruiter?”

Well, think about what Walker just did for both recruiting high school recruits and for retaining players on the roster. The latter might actually be more important.

Walker was a 5-star recruit in the 2019 class. In his first 2 years at Georgia, he didn’t start a game. He totaled 5.5 sacks and 3 tackles for loss. Something tells me that in this new era of the transfer portal, Smart is going to have to talk some more underclassmen 5-stars out of entering the transfer portal. Walker stayed, started, won a ring and went No. 1 overall.

By the way, not even Nick Saban can make that pitch. Despite all the draft feats of the Alabama coach, one thing he’s never had is a No. 1 overall pick. Really. In fact, the only active coaches who are still at the same place where they coached a No. 1 overall pick are Smart (Walker, 2022), Dabo Swinney (Trevor Lawrence, 2021) and David Shaw (Andrew Luck, 2012).

Unlike Lawrence and Luck, Walker didn’t have to be the star on his own team. You could make the case that he was the No. 3 defensive lineman on Georgia’s roster. Walker didn’t need to play 60 snaps a game to shine, either (he averaged 39.7 this past year). Shoot, he didn’t even need to become an all-conference player.

That’s, um, rare.

I can see Smart’s pitch. “This is why individual accolades are overrated.”

On second thought, former Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning already gave Smart that pitch:

Cliché? A bit. True? Very.

Never mind the fact that few human beings (if any) will test like Walker did. It’s not Smart’s job to predict that.

What Smart can sell is a vision. Walker didn’t need some massive NIL marketing campaign to drive his price up. If anything, Walker’s soft-spoken nature only added to his late rise. When he was announced as the No. 1 overall pick, he let out what was unofficially the most relaxed reaction ever to being the No. 1 overall pick. I suppose when you’ve played on the stages that Walker did, that’s to be expected.

This is the same guy who went from a late-first round prospect in December to wreaking havoc in both of Georgia’s Playoff games. He had a sack in each of those 2 Playoff games, and he had a game-high 7 pressures against Bryce Young in the title game.

Was that valued too much? Also irrelevant for Smart. More relevant is that when you’re a team that performs well enough to get to a championship stage, you can pop like Walker did.

Very few teams in the country can sell that, too. Remember, 6 teams have won a Playoff game. Five have a ring. Georgia is now part of that group.

I mean, think about that. Smart no longer has these “yeah, buts.” A ring, a No. 1 overall pick and probably the most draft picks of any team in 2022? That’s a flex. That’s an easy way to quiet any sort of lingering notion that Smart and his staff aren’t developing NFL talent at a high level.

The irony is that Walker still has more developing to do. The Jaguars fell in love with his traits. It’s hard not to. The Myles Garrett-like testing numbers will make anyone take a closer look. Smart can sell the “iron sharpens iron” message with that, too. Surely it didn’t hurt that Walker shared a defensive line with a physical freak like Jordan Davis, or that he could look around and see Smart recruiting 5-stars who were ready to take his job.

Walker stayed. Walker won. Walker got paid.

In a weird way, Walker’s emergence might’ve just given Smart the best possible trump card he could’ve asked for in the NFL Draft. He added even more leverage when recruiting against lesser Power 5 programs that sell playing time. No powerhouse program has had a player like Walker emerge as a No. 1 pick after not even being a top-3 player on his own side of the ball.

Walker was unique in every way. Now, Smart’s flexing will be unique, too.