It may look like Georgia is executing a long-secret plan if satellite camps were approved. In fact, head coach Kirby Smart said, the inside view of it is a bit hectic.
“Literally, I get a text every five minutes about another one,” Smart said.
The NCAA reversed itself last week, allowing schools to attend the so-called satellite camps, a term for recruiting camps hosted by a school but not on its own campus. Smart had been philosophically against the camps, along with the rest of the SEC. But once they became legal – the SEC rescinds its rule against them later this month – then word immediately leaked about camps Georgia will be involved in.
One will be at Cedar Grove High School in June, where Georgia will join Michigan’s coaches. A few others have been announced by other high schools. More apparently will be coming, but Smart said he will be “selective.”
“It’s tough, and you’ve got to decide, am I going outside my footprint of recruiting, or am I staying inside,” Smart said on Wednesday, during the SEC spring teleconferences. “That’s the dilemma we have now in trying to make these decisions, that we’re not really used to. …
“Yeah, we’ll be a part of them. But where and when exactly, I mean obviously we’ve got a couple that are out there already. But you’ve got to cut through a lot of hoops to make sure these things are done proper and done under NCAA rules before you can put your name on them. So it’s a little bit of a slower process.”
More issues are involved, Smart pointed out. Which coaches attend each camp: All of them, just a few assistants, the head coach, etc.? He pointed out that you may not want to be attending a satellite camp while you could be hosting a recruit on your campus, or may already have plans to do that.
Those were issues that Smart mentioned in February when discussing his reticence about camps. He was asked Wednesday what his reaction was last week when the NCAA rescinded the ban.
“My reaction is it kind of is what it is,” Smart said, chuckling. “It’s not a situation where we had a major voice as individuals in the decision-making process. We all were aware that it was a possibility, and we all had to prepare kind of going two ways, with and without them. That’s what you do as coaches. You have to prepare ahead of time and kind of figure out your plan.
“We’ll have a plan. I think everybody’s asking these questions – I heard somebody ask (Florida head) coach (Jim) McElwain – it’s hard to say where you’re going and what you’re doing because things change. So there’s camps popping up left and right and here and there, and this is kind of what we anticipated having. So everybody’s going to have one and everybody wants you to be at theirs, and you don’t even have a small window to go to them.”
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