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Kirby Smart discusses Georgia not adding any transfer portal players before 2022 season
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Sometimes, the transfer portal provides the missing ingredients to get a program from 3-9 to 6-6, or 6-6 to 9-3, or 9-3 to a national championship contender.
Or, sometimes, the portal just isn’t needed for any of it.
Take the 2022 Georgia Bulldogs, for example.
They won the national title in 2021, their 1st since 1980, and then what did head coach Kirby Smart do to replenish his roster in the pursuit of a repeat championship in 2022?
He recruited like crazy and brought back a stacked roster led by quarterback Stetson Bennett.
And he left the transfer portal alone, because that’s just kind of how it all went down.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart on not using the transfer portal to add anyone before this season: "It wasn't a philosophy. It was more that's the way it played out."
Smart noted UGA called on a few options and ultimately didn't land anyone
— Jordan D. Hill (@JordanDavisHill) December 14, 2022
“It wasn’t a philosophy. It was more, that’s the way it played out,” Smart explained on Wednesday, as his top-ranked, 13-0 Bulldogs are 2 College Football Playoff victories away from a perfect season and a repeat crown.
Smart did also note that Georgia checked up on a few options in the transfer portal but nothing came of them, so he didn’t force the issue just because it’s the portal and it’s supposed to provide programs with those missing, experienced ingredients that freshman recruits just can’t provide.
For Smart and his powerhouse program in the fall of 2022, it was no portal, no problem.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
