ATHENS — Kirby Smart was more than happy to talk about recruiting on Wednesday. The Bulldogs signed 28 recruits, giving Georgia the No. 1 signing class in the country for the 2024 country.
Smart spent time going in-depth on players like Justin Williams and Ellis Robinson, while also speaking on the future of the quarterback position.
Below is a full transcript of what Smart had to say on Wednesday. All 28 commits in the class ended up signing on Wednesday.
Opening statement...
“Certainly excited today, as I think I am every day. I think you could hit repeat on every time we’ve had this signing day press conference because we get our new kids coming in. I’m really excited about this class. Obviously it started long before this time last year. We’re really confident in our evaluations. We do a thorough job.
I think somebody told me on here — I was looking at this before I came out here — I think 24 of 28 guys worked out on our campus with our coaches. 25 of 28 guys were multi-sport athletes. 13 different states. No. 1 player in maybe four or five different states. More important than all that, it’s the kind of kids they are. I’m excited to get them to come in and work. We’ve already got, I really don’t know, 8 or 9 guys here working with us that are competing and hopefully more to come midyear. I think it’s something like 23 guys coming midyear, which seems to be the trend in all of college football, which is important because you cannot develop players if you don’t have them here. You can’t practice to develop the other players if you don’t have enough depth here. We have gone with the model of going through the high school ranks, developing players. The way it’s looking right now, somewhere around 40 percent, maybe 50 percent, maybe even 60 percent of our roster next year will be in its first two years in the program. That, you’ve gotta have spring practice. You’ve gotta have development to do.
A lot of credit goes to our staff. Our coaches have done a tremendous job in what is an extremely difficult time. But most of our class was done. I think this might’ve been the earliest class we’ve ever had the numbers committed. I’m really proud of them and looking forward to kinda indoctrinating these guys into our culture and getting them better. I guess that’s it. We’ll open it up for questions.”
On the physical traits you want in a QB and what Ryan Puglisi possesses...
“The physical traits are size, speed, intelligence. For the intangible traits, character, what the kid’s makeup is, the velocity with which he throws the ball. We have guys that throw it hard. We’ve had guys that can’t throw it hard. They’ve had different levels of success. The common denominator for us has been intelligence, ability to create and extend plays. So we look at all those things. He came down here, Ryan came down here, I bet 5 or 6 times. He checked the box every time for the right kind of kid, the right kind of competitor. He’s embraced the part about learning. He sees himself as a guy that needs to come in and develop under a system. He’s seen Carson’s success, so I think he understands that. He wants to grow and get better.
Read more at DawgNation.com.
Sign Up
