Georgia hasn’t had success with 5-star QBs under Kirby Smart. Will that change?

ATHENS — The first big recruiting win for Georgia coach Kirby Smart involved 5-star quarterback Jacob Eason. Days after taking the Georgia job, Eason reaffirmed his pledge to Georgia instead of flipping to Florida.

The top player in Georgia’s 2018 recruiting class, the first No. 1 overall class Smart signed using the 247Sports Composite rankings, was quarterback Justin Fields.

Georgia began its 2021 season with former 5-star prospect JT Daniels as the team’s starting quarterback.

And for much of the 2026 recruiting cycle, Smart seemed to have his next 5-star signal caller lined up in Jared Curtis.

Yet Curtis will enter Saturday’s game playing for the opposing Vanderbilt Commodores. Eason, Fields and Daniels all ended up transferring out of the program, as they opted to finish their careers elsewhere.

Smart has always made it a point to have the most talented recruits in the country at Georgia. The quarterback position is no different.

Whereas the Bulldogs have repeated success with other 5-star position players, the quarterback spot remains elusive.

Dating back to the 2016 signing class, the Bulldogs have signed 51 5-star high school recruits, per the 247Sports Composite rankings. All four quarterbacks counted among those 51 ended up transferring out. By comparison, only nine of the other 47 players have done the same.

Eason and Fields ended up transferring for effectively the same reason. Neither could beat out Jake Fromm.

Fromm himself was no slouch as a recruit, finishing the 2017 recruiting cycle as the No. 44 overall recruit. Add in the instant success he had as Georgia’s quarterback, and it was hard to justify going to either of the quarterbacks with the perceived higher ceilings.

Eason would end up back in his home state of Washington, while Fields left for Ohio State after just one season.

After Fields left the program, Georgia wouldn’t get back into the 5-star quarterback business until January of 2020. Shortly after Todd Monken arrived in Athens as the new offensive coordinator, the Bulldogs landed a commitment from 5-star prospect Brock Vandagriff.

In May of that same year, JT Daniels joined the roster after transferring in from USC. He would miss the first six games of the 2020 season as he recovered from a knee injury he suffered at USC. Once cleared, he took over for Stetson Bennett as the team’s starting quarterback and won Georgia’s final four games of the 2020 season.

A strong close to that year inflamed expectations going into 2021. Yet a preseason injury led to a less-than-stellar showing against Clemson. Daniels would miss the UAB game, where Bennett threw five touchdowns on 12 pass attempts.

Vandagriff was on the roster for the 2021 season as a true freshman. But whereas Eason and Fromm started during their first seasons in Athens, Smart had built up the Georgia machine to the point that it no longer needed to take that risk.

After Daniels left the game against Vanderbilt with another injury, he would join Vandagriff on the bench. Georgia rode Bennett the rest of the way, and while it was far from perfect, Bennett played a major part in Georgia beating Alabama in the national championship this time.

It is at least notable that in the two seasons under Smart in which they opened with a 5-star quarterback as their game one starter, the Bulldogs got to the national championship game. Even if said 5-star prospect was the backup by the time Georgia got to the big game.

After Bennett elected to return to Georgia for a sixth season, Daniels transferred to West Virginia. He would be benched again during the 2022 season and finished his college career at Rice.

Vandagriff never got the chance to start at Georgia. Carson Beck was tabbed to replace Bennett for the 2023 season. When Beck decided to come back for the 2024 season, Vandagriff ultimately ended up at Kentucky.

Georgia would see Vandagriff during the 2024 season, when Georgia beat Kentucky 13-12. Vandagriff would ultimately walk away from the game of football after his lone season at Kentucky. Like Daniels, he too was benched before the end of the season.

Of the four 5-star quarterbacks to sign with Georgia, Fields was the only one who would go on to become a first-round pick in the NFL draft.

Beck’s decision to return also impacted 5-star Georgia commit Dylan Raiola. As Beck was weighing whether or not to return to Georgia, Raiola was putting the finishing touches on a poem that would cement his flip from Georgia to Nebraska. Raiola, like Curtis with Vanderbilt, had strong ties with the Nebraska program along with the chance to start right away.

Had Raiola signed with Georgia, he would’ve sat behind the incumbent Beck. Much like Curtis would’ve done with Gunner Stockton.

Yet the instant gratification that came from signing with the Cornhuskers did not work the way Raiola had hoped. The Cornhuskers went 7-6 in his first season while Georgia went to the College Football Playoff.

As a sophomore, Raiola suffered a leg injury in his ninth game of the season. The Cornhuskers finished the year going 7-6 once again, and Raiola had enough. He announced he would transfer to Oregon, where he would sit behind returning starter Dante Moore.

When Moore left this last weekend’s game against USC after suffering a concussion, Raiola stepped in as the starter. Surrounded by talent that didn’t require him to be the obvious best player on the field, he delivered one of the best performances of his career, leading the Ducks to a comeback win over the Trojans.

It’s hard not to see what Raiola did and wonder if Curtis would’ve been better off following the same path. Yet for all the resources Georgia was willing to commit to Curtis, the one thing it couldn’t offer was immediate playing time.

Fromm was the last true freshman quarterback to start for the Bulldogs. Bennett, Beck and Stockton all waited until at least their third season with Georgia to start their first game.

“The hardest job we have is promising those families and kids that we’re not going to sit your kid on the shelf and not let him grow,” Smart said earlier this season.

Curtis meanwhile got the start for Vanderbilt in the third game of his college career. He’s thrown four touchdowns to three interceptions while adding 133 rushing yards and two more scores on the ground. The Commodores are 2-1 in those games, yet his talent is apparent to anyone who has watched.

“Tremendous talent. Way better athletically than people give him credit for,” Smart said. “I don’t know if anybody’s tackled him, with one person, tackled him yet. He’s strong. He’s quick. He’s powerful. He’s got great arm talent. Everything everybody thought has been true.”

Curtis clearly has the physical tools to play at Georgia. But it’s fair to wonder if he had the mental acumen to sit and develop behind a more experienced starting quarterback. Arch Manning, another 5-star quarterback Georgia targeted in the 2023 recruiting class, did so at Texas as he waited until his third season to start full-time for the Longhorns.

Despite the lack of success with uber-talented quarterbacks, Smart remains undeterred in targeting his next one.

The Bulldogs hold a commitment from 5-star 2028 prospect Jayden Wade. Like Curtis initially, he committed very early during his recruiting process.

Georgia wasn’t able to hang on to Curtis. Smart knows it will be a battle to do so with Wade, even if the talented IMG Academy quarterback is saying all the right things.

“No one’s committed until they’re signed,” Smart said. “So I don’t see it as a challenge. I see it as they’re not committed. At the end of the day, they’re bound until they sign something or they enroll, and that’s just kinda the way it is. I don’t really look at it as the challenge of keeping them. They’re not yours. They have an option to go other places. You also have an option to not keep them.”

Evaluating quarterbacks is never easy. If it were, Fernando Mendoza wouldn’t have played for Indiana and Cal before becoming the No. 1 overall pick.

Add in the desire to play early, with the pressures that come with living up to the massive name, image and likeness deals these quarterbacks now command, and it’s arguably more difficult than ever to thread the needle on landing elite quarterback prospects.