Yea, I don't agree with pretty much all you stated.
Recruits care about (no particular order)
- Who will pay me the most NIL / best packaged NIL
- Who has a history of developing their said position
- Who gets players drafted at their positions
- Some players do care about highest paid in the NFL if it is current. Within a year - McLaurin signed a big extension, Garrett Willson signed a big extension, and now JSN just signed the current highest contract ever. That is an easy added selling point for Cortez Hankton.
- Tradition and making the playoffs/championships
Georgia gets talent due to: Tradition, known to develop players, living in a recruiting hot bed, the bagman (now it's NIL).
Kirby could put out a FU to everyone and still would get recruits, lol.
Why is Oregon getting top recruits? Because they pay whatever they want to get them to come. Why is Miami? Same reason. Why is Tennessee? Same reason...hell they offered around the same money OSU did, the reason they lost was buying a house and extras for the Offensive Tackle. The same for Kirby, it's freaking GA and they will pay for recruits.
MIchigan's Underwood was pretty much a given to LSU. Michigan paid him ridiculous money and all of a sudden, the #1 QB recruit is a Michigan player.
Yeah, I could say we could agree to disagree, but that would be way understated.
You are delusional if you think Kirby could come right out and say something like "Monroe Freeling isn't ready for the NFL and I told him he should have stayed for another year to try be more prepared" and it leaks leading up to the draft. That would plummet his draft stock and recruits would take notice. That shows that he cares more about the Georgia program keeping players longer than the players themselves. I can see where you can twist this to mean, he does care about the players by keeping it real and looking out for them, but the man would be directly wrecking a players chance to be drafted higher and thus lose money in the first 4 to 5 years of their professional career.
Salary slots for 2026 NFL draft picks:
10. $29.6M
15. $22.7M
20. $20M
25. $18.8M
33. $12.9M #20 to second round first pick loses $7M
I just looked it up Monroe Freeling's NIL was $148k, which was one of the highest for offensive tackles. It's a drop in the bucket of what he will be paid at the next level.
THAT ↑↑↑↑ Is way more than what they are going to get from NIL for non-QBs or the top .5% players in college. Their rookie deals are more than double what their NIL package is going to be, but more importantly, the sooner they get to the NFL, the sooner that second contract comes.
It sure as hell makes a difference where they are drafted.
I agree with you that second tier players want to go to a program where they will get development, see the tradition, etc... We aren't talking about those players, we are talking about blue chippers that have no choice but to spend 3 years at a school before hearing their name called on draft day. They are thinking about the draft from the first recruitment visit. If I have a coach at Ohio State that props up all of their players and gets 4 guys drafted in the top 7 picks of the draft, vs a school where a coach just said the statement above and a player projected to go in the top 20 is now drafted in the second round... IT WILL BE reflected in top recruits decisions.
Everyone is now dealing with NIL money, that is definitely going to be factors with all recruits moving forward. That's the world we live in now. But all things being equal, a coach that stands by their players entering their pro career vs a guy that states something negative will lose more recruits than they retain.
If Monroe Freeling wannabes see him fall in the draft because of something Kirby Smart said, Smart would lose a lot of the players he was hoping to get... Which is why Kirby is Smart enough to not say any such thing. He will be saying what everyone expects him to say which is "You are getting a kid that has all the talent to be a 10-15 year starter in the NFL and he is coming from the best coaches in college football prepared to play from day 1" -Even to his supposed good buddy Monken.
