To get Georgia back on top, Kirby Smart must handle roster turnover like Nick Saban

If anyone is going to win like Nick Saban, it will be Kirby Smart. Saban’s defensive coordinator took the Georgia job with the promise that he’d enjoy the same kind of resources in Athens as Saban had in Tuscaloosa. Smart got everything he wanted while building the Bulldogs into a machine that won back-to-back national championships

Getting to the top was hard for Smart. Staying there might be harder.

Smart’s old boss managed to do it even as an unprecedented number of Alabama players become top NFL draft picks. After winning back-to-back national titles and reeling off 29 consecutive victories, Smart’s Bulldogs have shown the cracks left behind by the roster attrition of players going to the NFL and transfer portal.

The latest wave includes at least 11 Georgia players who’ve entered the portal since Georgia’s final game. The Bulldogs also could have as many as six players selected within the top 100 picks of this year’s draft. Smart has built Georgia into an elite program by attracting several of the top high school prospects to Athens every year. He’s gotten diminished returns as the some of those players move on to the NFL or the transfer portal.

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That comes with the usual caveat that the Bulldogs are still an elite program since winning back-to-back championships. Last season, they missed the four-team playoff after losing to Bama by a field goal in the SEC Championship game. Georgia just lost in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals while playing a backup quarterback. CFP berths are the floor for the Bulldogs now that the field is 12 teams.

But the bar at Georgia is winning national championships or at least playing in the championship game. That’s why Smart is the highest-paid coach in college football at $13.3 million per year. For Smart to maintain that standard, he’ll have to deal with roster turnover as well as Saban did before he retired last year. The 12-team playoff is an advantage Saban never had, but he had to deal with liberalized transfer rules and the NIL market for only the final three years of his 17 at Alabama.

The latest round of roster turnover for Georgia includes at least 11 players who decided to enter the portal. The best among them is quarterback Carson Beck, the No. 1 transfer per the 247Sports Composite. Linebacker Damon Wilson, the No. 5 transfer per 247 Sports, also entered the portal.

Those players join the usual group of top Georgia players headed for the NFL. This year that list includes three defenders who are projected to be first-round selections: safety Malaki Starks, linebacker Jalon Walker and Mykel Williams. Georgia’s relative decline runs parallel with the quality of players it’s sent to the NFL.

The 2021 NFL draft class included six ex-Bulldogs selected among the top 100 picks. Only one of them, Jaguars cornerback Tyson Campbell, has become a full-time starter. NFL teams picked eight Georgia players in the top 100 of the 2022 draft. Six of those players are standouts, including Bills running back James Cook and Steelers wide receiver George Pickens.

The 2023 NFL draft class included four Georgia players within the top 100 picks. All of them are starters. Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter is an All-Pro this season and teammate Nolan Smith came on as a pass rusher. All six Georgia players picked in the top 100 of the 2024 NFL draft are starters. Raiders tight end Brock Bowers is an All-Pro, and Chargers wide receiver Ladd McConkey ranked 10th in receiving yards.

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That’s a lot of top player talent lost by Georgia over the past three draft cycles. Smart has replaced those players with top recruits. UGA’s classes ranked No. 1 in four of the past eight years and were top five all eight years. Smart has supplemented the roster with transfers. This year, outgoing top 50 transfers Beck and Wilson are offset by two incoming top 50 transfers at wide receiver, Zachariah Branch (USC) and Noah Thomas (Texas A&M).

The challenge for Smart will be to get his team back on top despite the roster turnover. Saban pulled that off better than any coach. The Tide won three BCS national championships in four years from 2009-12. In the seven years from 2015-21, Alabama won three CFP titles and lost in the championship game twice. Those runs happened before the NCAA liberalized transfer rules in 2021, but Bama kept winning even though an unprecedented number of players left to become top NFL draft prospects.

The Crimson Tide had a total of 18 players selected in the top 100 picks of the NFL drafts from 2009-12, with at least four in each season. NFL teams selected a total of 65 Bama players in the seven drafts from 2015-21, including 46 within the top 100 picks. At least five ex-Tide players were top 100 picks from 2016-21, with a high of nine in both 2017 and 2020.

Losing so many elite players to the NFL didn’t slow Saban’s march to national titles. And as much as Saban complained about the transfer portal, he usually came out of the other side of the window looking pretty good. But Saban retired before getting the Tide back to the top. They lost to Georgia in the 2021 national title game, didn’t make the CFP field in 2022 and ended the 2023 season with a loss to Michigan in the playoff.

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Smart inherited the title of best coach in college football when Saban retired after the 2023 season. Smart still is the best college coach despite not winning national championships the past two seasons. Clemson’s Dabo Swinney is the only active coach with more than one national title. He won his last one during the 2018 season. Smart won both his rings since then.

Winning the next one will require Smart to overcome the loss of waves of talented players, like Saban used to do.