One of the biggest perks of being the head coach at Georgia is that even if you don’t leave your own state you can still finish with one of the nation’s top recruiting class.
If Georgia only signed the top players in the Peach State, it would still result in a damn good class signing class.
However, Kirby Smart knows that’s not realistic, so he reeled in 25 players from nine different states and together they formed the nation’s No. 1 overall ranked recruiting class.
Georgia’s often had success recruiting from other states, most notably South Florida. Then there’s the superstar running backs to come from North Carolina. Or the big arm of Jacob Eason from Washington. If Kirby Smart sees talent, he will go to any corner of the map to bring it to Athens.
This year’s class broken down by state:
Georgia: 8
Florida: 5
Texas: 3
Louisiana: 3
California: 2
Nevada: 1
Arizona: 1
Washington D.C.: 1
New Jersey: 1
On the topic of out-of-state kids, Smart said:
“Number one, we had more interest from out-of-state kids. We had some national interest from players that came to camp and really performed well that in the past, we might have lost out on.
We might have been second or third on a national kid that was a really good player. Say a Darnell (Washington), say a Kendall (Milton), say a Kelee (Ringo). But we won a lot of those. The other part is we lost some great battles that were really, really good players. So, I think the two of those merged to make that unique position where we would’ve taken the in-state guy or the out-of-state guy. It just so happens we took the out-of-state guy. But we’re excited for those players. There are a lot of good out-of-state players that play here at the University of Georgia. There’s no limitation to your borders. But we respect and understand how good our state is.”