Before Kirby Smart’s Georgia team went 12–1 in an eventual national championship season, the Bulldogs head coach was “ready to step down.”
The COVID-19 pandemic halted in-person recruiting and created a dead period until June 1 last year, causing an influx of visits that left the coach and his staff feeling burned out.
“I was ready to step down,” Smart said at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention Tuesday, per ESPN’s Dave Wilson. “I was done. We had kids every day from June 1 to June 28. We had caravans showing up from the Atlanta airport at midnight, and they wanted to go in our indoor and work out at midnight because they had to go to another school at 7 in the morning. They had to go to another school at 10 in the evening, and they were trying to make the stops.
“If we weren’t there at midnight, we weren’t going to see them. What do you do? Say no? Those kids are flying from Washington, from California. We were there with them, and it drove our staff crazy.”
In order to avoid burnout this year, the head coach said that every Monday in June was scheduled as an off day so his staff could recharge, according to The Athletic’s Sam Khan Jr. Smart also said he asked his staff to come in on Friday afternoons instead of mornings so they could be ready for the arrivals of recruits on Friday nights. The coach said these changes were helpful.
Smart and his staff’s summer fatigue was not evident in the 2021 season, where the Bulldogs’ only loss came against Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. Their loss did not deter the College Football Playoff selection committee from making Georgia the No. 3 seed, and the successful season continued as the Bulldogs churned through No. 2 Michigan and got their revenge on the Crimson Tide when it mattered.
The 46-year-old Smart later clarified to DawgNation that his comments were not meant to be taken literally but in the context of a question about work/life balance. That was on the mind of one Texas high school football coach at the convention, who asked the Georgia coach if a healthy work/life balance exists in college football.
To that question Smart bluntly responded, “No.”
It’s clear the coach and his staff paid a price to become champions.
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