Congratulation: Kirby Smart Becomes Highest-Paid NFL Coach At $85 Million Per Yerar After Agreeing To….

It’s a week later, and it still makes sense University of Georgia officials placed a bullseye (as in bull$eye) the size of Stone Mountain on the back of Kirby Smart. They gave their college football coach the highest annual salary in history for his profession at $13 million.

Kirby has won two national championships for the Bulldogs within the last three years, so all he must do now is capture two, three or four more.

At least.

Here’s why: Kirby is The New Nick Saban, and the original one was peerless by earning six of his seven national championship rings at Alabama before retiring after last season. He preceded Smart as the highest-paid college football coach ever at $11.4 million per year.

I’ll save you the math. Kirby surpasses Saban’s old annual mark by nearly $2 million, which means the Georgia skipper has those arrows aimed his way courtesy of his new payday and his need to do the impossible: At Georgia, he must spend the next decade or so becoming Saban-Alabama dominant in a college football climate that won’t allow for such things.

You have the transfer portal. Since its debut during the fall of 2018, it has become easier in college athletics for players to switch after a season from one program to another. It’s free agency without the salary cap, and it has created a lack of continuity among rosters over time, which isn’t conducive to building a quasi-dynasty let alone a real one.

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You have Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) contracts. Since the summer of 2021, the NCAA has allowed players to get paid. Big time. The elite athletes have a tendency to go to the highest bidder, and that also affects roster continuity (see above). So coaches with championships always on their minds must encourage NIL collectives at their universities to shell out as much cash as possible on a consistent basis to get and to keep players.

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Georgia basketball entered the 2024 offseason with many questions after missing the NCAA Tournament. Mike White seems to have addressed a lot of those questions.

After Georgia’s 2023-24 basketball season concluded with a loss to Seton Hall in the NIT semifinals, there were a lot of questions about the future of Georgia basketball and what the roster would like for next year. There were players Georgia needed to keep, players that would leave in the transfer portal, and players Georgia would add through the portal.

The biggest question for this team going into the offseason was if Georgia would be able to keep the three freshmen — Silas Demary, Blue Cain, and Dylan James — who were all starting by the end of the year.

Georgia head coach Mike White knew these three players would be a big part of their future and needed to hang on to them. There were major questions about whether Silas Demary was going to enter the transfer portal and leave Georgia, but he decided to stay. The other two freshmen followed his lead and decided to stay as well. This was the Dawgs’ first big win of the offseason!

These are the only three scholarship players who will be returning to UGA next year. Now, we can look at who Georgia gained through the transfer portal and their current roster for next year.

Georgia Portal Additions
Dakota Leffew

Dakota Leffew joins Georgia after playing for Mount St. Mary’s for the last 4 years. Dakota is 6′ 5” Guard and averaged 17.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists a year ago. This a solid pickup for Georgia and he should be able to provide Georgia with some playmaking and spacing (37 percent from 3 last year) next year. He will only have 1 year remaining in college.

De’Shayne Montgomery

Georgia added the Mount St. Mary’s duo with Montgomery and Leffew. Montgomery was a freshman last year and he put up some impressive states, averaging 13.5 points and shooting 52 percent from the field.

Freshmen do not get a lot of run in college basketball these days so it is great to see these stats from a freshman. Montgomery is a 6’4 SG/SF who is super athletic and has a lot of potential to become a star for the team next year.

Tyrin Lawrence

Tyrin Lawrence is the star of the transfer portal class so far for the Dawgs. Lawrence averaged 13.8 pts and five rebounds a year ago for Vandy but only shot 40 percent from the floor.

This was likely due to not having much around him because he averaged 13 per game the previous year and shot 50 percent from the field. Lawrence will provide Georgia with another guard/wing with heavy SEC experience and he will likely start for UGA next year.

Justin Abson

Georgia improved their frontcourt with the addition of Justin Abson out of Appalachian State. Abson was mainly known for his defense with the Mountaineers and will provide the Dawgs with a formidable presence in the paint.

Abson averaged 2.8 blocks a game and only averaged 24 minutes a game so he is going to be very helpful in improving Georgia’s interior defense which was a major weakness a year ago.

RJ Godfrey

RJ Godfrey will help Georgia improve their interior play next year on both sides of the ball. In his Sophomore year at Clemson, he helped Clemson reach the elite eight averaging 6.1 points and 3.4 rebounds.

These numbers do not stick out at first but Godfrey only played about 15 games as he sat behind a loaded Clemson front line. I would not be surprised to see Godfrey average 10 points and 7 rebounts a game this upcoming season in Athens with more opportunity.

Incoming freshmen to contribute
Georgia has also added two highly-rated freshmen to go along with their strong transfer class. The Dawgs added Asa Newell who is ranked near the top 10 in all national rankings.

Newell will likely start at PF for UGA next year and could be a star from the start. Georgia also just added Somto Cyril to the class who is an athletic freak at the center position and should provide Georgia with high-energy minutes at the center position. Cyril is ranked inside the top 50 in all the national rankings as well.

This has been a great offseason so far for Georgia and they still have 3 scholarships to fill if they feel the need to fill them all. The roster has improved greatly from a year ago and the NCAA Tournament drought looks like it could come to an end in the 24-25 season. Let’s Georgia and Mike White can finish up the offseason strong with a few new additions to improve those tournament odds!