MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — When Kirby Smart attended his first SEC spring meeting as head coach in 2016, only five members of the media met him when he arrived in Emerald Room B at the Sandestin Beach Hilton.
The main reason was that Smart was late picking up his rental car at the airport that day and ended up playing in a different room than Alabama coach Nick Saban because of a game schedule overlap.
Smart, arguably the most prominent head coach in college football since Saban's retirement in January, commanded the theater room early Tuesday afternoon and was the last of the five football coaches to stand in front of the press box and answer questions before the coaches' conference began.
There is a lot to talk about.
“This is probably the most anticipated meeting in the nine years that I've been involved with this conference because there's so much left for us to decide, to have a say in, because some of it is beyond our decision-making process,” Smart said. “There's a lot that goes into it.”
Here's some of what Smart said:
Kirby Smart talks football roster cap
The possibility of an enrollment cap is being discussed after the NCAA settled three antitrust lawsuits, paying about $2.8 billion in damages to current and former players and sharing about 22% of annual revenues with power conference schools.
“That's what we're here to solve,” Smart said. “We feel very strongly that roster spots are important and walk-ons are important. Where that fits in, that's why we're here.”
In football, there is talk of 85 being the number that would put a walk-on spot in jeopardy.
“I don't know anybody that doesn't defend walk-ons,” Smart said. “We're just talking about things that make sense. When you apply those known facts in the form of a settlement that I don't fully understand, I don't see where that plays out.”
He mentioned Dabo Swinney, Will Muskamp and Ladd McConkey as guys who “came to the school as walk-ons and then went on to be successful football players, successful coaches, successful at whatever they did.”
McConkey signed with the University of Georgia, but most of his offers came from smaller colleges.
How an expanded playoff could affect UGA football's 12-team lineup
Smart has led Georgia to the College Football Playoff in three of his eight seasons and has come close to the playoff in other seasons, including when Georgia went 12-1 after losing to Alabama in the SEC championship game last year.
“There were probably three times where we were one of the best four teams, but we just couldn't win it on the field,” said Smart, who won national titles in 2021 and 2022.
The playoffs have now been expanded from four to 12 teams, but there will still be debate over which teams are eliminated.
Just like the Monday brackets for college baseball and the March Madness brackets for college basketball.
“The same opportunities are going to be there, you're just going to be 13, 14, 15 years old,” Smart said. “You guys are going to talk about that a lot. I'm just going to try to make my team stronger so I'm not going to be 13, 14, 15 years old.”
Eight-game schedules for the next two seasons. What about 2026?
The SEC plans to maintain its eight-game schedule in 2024 and 2025 with the same opponents but in different locations.
Discussions beyond 2026 are due to take place this week, but no decisions are expected to be made.
“This is an important question,” Smart said. “Your notes say to ask the question: eight games or nine games? I totally agree with that question. Eight or nine games, I don't care. I don't care at all. If nine games means more teams can play, then I'm for it. If there's an element of schedule rigor that allows teams playing really good teams to lose two or three games and still play, then I'm for it. If it's not helping us, then why do it? That's what the fans, the people who are paying for tickets, want to see.”
