Kirby Smart: No spring transfer portal is no problem for Georgia football

Kirby Smart knows his team has holes. Pass rush and wide receiver jump to mind as areas of need.

A year ago, Smart used the transfer portal to get help, adding four players to Georgia’s roster.

Because of changes to college football’s rules and calendar, he no longer has that option. The players he has are the ones he’s going to have to work with and improve if the Bulldogs are to ease any concerns.

And Smart couldn’t be happier.

“The fact that I don’t have to run around and sign and chase my own players, more or less anybody else’s players, it gives me some calm knowing that we have our players in place,” Smart said in an appearance on “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” on WJOX-FM 94.5.

Smart did acknowledge the drawback of not being able to improve his roster, especially in the event of an injury.

One of Georgia’s biggest setbacks this spring came to a transfer it added in hopes of improving its pass rush. Outside linebacker Amaris Williams suffered an ACL injury in one of the Bulldogs’ final spring practices. Now Georgia has to wait and see if it can get anything at all from the Auburn transfer.

Chase Linton, Isaiah Gibson and others will have to spend the summer bettering themselves to make up for the loss of Williams.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Smart is fine with the new setup. Georgia brought in the fewest number of transfers in the SEC when the lone portal window was open in early January. Georgia also lost the fewest transfers this offseason among SEC teams, with only 12 players departing.

Smart has reiterated the importance of player development during the transfer portal era. This spring, he was able to focus more on improving his team rather than worrying about who might have a wandering eye. It’s why Smart speaks with such confidence about the direction of his football team.

“I think maybe the worry or angst or the evaluations you would normally be doing were little less because you were constantly looking to see, over your shoulder, who you were losing and who you might get,” Smart told reporters Tuesday in Birmingham, Alabama. “But now you don’t have that. You know, you just focus on your team.”

The Bulldogs’ pass rush was a concern ahead of the 2025 season. With the addition of Army transfer Elo Modozie, it seemed Georgia had addressed the need.

That proved to be untrue. Georgia had just 20 sacks, the fewest of any College Football Playoff participant. Modozie, who finished the season with seven tackles and no sacks, transferred to Purdue in January after never taking a single spring practice snap during his time in Athens.

As successful as Zachariah Branch was for the Bulldogs last season, far more transfer stories turn out like Modozie’s. That’s why Smart prefers developing players over the course of multiple years.

While Smart might be content with the current setup, the same can’t be said for all of college football.

“I mean, there’s the stuff there that every coach wishes they could go out and grab somebody else and improve,” he said.

Consider Texas Tech, which just had its presumed starting quarterback, Brendan Sorsby, come under investigation in a gambling scandal.

With Sorsby — who was set to play for his third college this fall — potentially out of the picture, it has cast major doubt as to Texas Tech’s viability as a contender.

“You’ve got to educate your players,” Smart said about what he tells his team about gambling. “You’ve got to hope that they listen and learn.

“Sometimes it’s an expensive lesson to learn not to do it.”

Texas Tech would probably love to be able to go back into the transfer portal to find a replacement for Sorsby. Instead, it will have to hope backup Will Hammond recovers in time from a knee injury he suffered last season.

Otherwise, Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire is going to have to further coach up and develop another QB on his roster.