Inside Georgia’s $200 million quest to take down Alabama

Smart inherited a solid program from former coach Mark Richt, whose teams averaged nearly 10 wins per season during his 15-year tenure from 2001-15. Now, the challenge for Smart is doing what Richt’s teams couldn’t do — getting past the final hurdle.

“I thought we would be competing for SEC championships by now,” Smart said. “Maybe the second year was faster than expected, but we had some good players on that team. We had some good players that stayed. The bottom line is, if you compete for SEC championships, you’re competing for national championships.”

With the way Georgia is spending and investing, it seems fully committed to competing for both:

Recruiting

According to a recent USA Today Network study, the Bulldogs spent about $1.5 million more than any other public university in a Power 5 conference on recruiting during fiscal years 2016 to 2018. The report stated the Bulldogs spent more than $7 million during the three-year period, which was well ahead of the next closest schools, Alabama (about $5.6 million) and Tennessee (about $5 million).

Georgia’s recruiting expenditures have more than quadrupled over the past five years, from about $581,531 under Richt in 2013 to about $2.63 million in 2018, according to the report.

The expenses included recruits’ transportation, lodging and meals during official visits and coaches’ transportation and other travel costs for evaluations and in-home visits.

McGarity told ESPN the figures are a bit inflated because the Georgia Athletic Association currently doesn’t have its own jet for coaches’ transportation and is instead using charter services, which might have increased the costs.

Regardless, the Bulldogs have attempted to expand their recruiting footprint under Smart, signing players from seven states other than Georgia in 2018 and from nine in ’19. The Bulldogs already have prospects from four other states and the District of Columbia committed for 2020.

“There’s really not a value you can place on recruiting nor that you can budget,” McGarity said. “You’re just trying to make the best prediction that you can on previous years. You might be recruiting in-state more than you were out of state in certain years. A lot of it depends on where the visits and evaluations take place. You’re really just dependent on the location of the young people you’re trying to recruit.”

In 2016, after Smart was hired to replace Richt in December 2015, the Bulldogs’ class was ranked No. 7 nationally and No. 4 in the SEC by ESPN. Georgia’s class was No. 3 nationally (No. 2 in the SEC) in 2017, No. 1 nationally in ’18 and No. 2 nationally (No. 2 in the SEC) in ’19.

“The more success you have, the easier it is to recruit,” Smart said. “Recruits like success. Success, to me, is playing in national championship games, winning SEC championships and having draft picks. If you’re having kids drafted and you’re winning football games on big stages, then that kind of success recruits itself. At the end of the day, the kids want to see themselves in the limelight of the people before them.”

Facilities

Recruits also like shiny new locker rooms, weight rooms and indoor practice facilities, and Georgia’s athletic facilities have undergone a massive $174 million facelift over the past three years.

Earlier this month, Georgia announced an expansion of Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, which holds much of the football program’s office and locker room space. The new 165,000-square-foot facility will include a bigger weight room, locker room, offices and sports medicine facility. The price tag is $80 million.

The latest project comes on the heels of last year’s $63 million renovation of the west end zone of Sanford Stadium, which added a new locker room, recruiting lounge and seating, and an enlarged scoreboard. In 2017, Georgia completed construction of a new $30.2 million, 102,000-square-foot multi-use indoor practice facility, which was in the planning stages under Richt.

“I think facility-wise they were behind and we’re catching up rapidly,” Smart said.

McGarity said the UGA athletics department was able to pay for the indoor facility and stadium renovation entirely with private donations. He’s hoping to do the same with the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall expansion; his department has already raised about $31 million in donations for the project.

According to McGarity, Georgia has also raised about $121 million through its Magill Society, which includes donors who have pledged at least $25,000 over a five-year period. He said there have been 1,050 new such donors added in the past year.

“That’s allowed us to basically pay for these facilities through our donations,” McGarity said. “We haven’t had to take on any long-term debt. Fortunately, we haven’t had to raise ticket prices or donation [requirements to buy tickets] to pay for these facilities. Right now, the model we have is allowing us to keep ticket prices as low as we can. That’s been a key thing for these projects to move as quickly as they can. The donors have responded overwhelmingly to support what Kirby wants to do.”

Coaching salaries

After Georgia reached the CFP National Championship, it became the third FBS program to reach the $6 million mark in annual compensation for assistant coaches. Two years ago, only Alabama and Ohio State were paying their coaches more.

After Georgia lost both of its coordinators from a year ago — defensive coordinator Mel Tucker was named Colorado’s coach and offensive coordinator Jim Chaney took the same job at Tennessee — Smart reshuffled his coaching staff. The Bulldogs’ 10 on-field coaches will make a combined $6.045 million this year.

The Bulldogs don’t have an assistant making more than $1 million; Alabama pays offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian about $1.55 million and defensive coordinator Pete Golding about $1.1 million. But Georgia’s coaches are still among the best compensated in the FBS. New offensive coordinator James Coley makes $950,000 annually, and co-defensive coordinator Dan Lanning earns $750,000. Five of Georgia’s returning assistants from last season received raises of $100,000 or more.

Smart also agreed to a seven-year, $49 million extension in May 2018.

“So many times the head coach has a vision, and a head coach has a list of things that are important to him,” McGarity said. “That’s what was so important, being able to articulate and ask Kirby, ‘What do you need? What do you need to get the job done?’ And then it’s our job to make that vision a reality and provide him with the things he needs to compete at this level.”

Of course, if Georgia is going to do more, it’s going to have to get past the Mount Rushmore-sized obstacle standing in its way — Alabama. The Crimson Tide have won five of the past 10 national titles (and lost in two of their most recent three appearances to Clemson) under Nick Saban. The Crimson Tide haven’t stopped recruiting — they signed the No. 1 class in the country in February — or spending. Last year, Alabama announced a $600 million campaign to upgrade its basketball and football facilities.

“If you asked me before the [2017] national championship game, I would have thought they were well ahead of us,” Smart said. “But after the game, I really didn’t feel that way. Even last year, it seemed to me that we were not as far off. Our kids understand that, physically, we can play with them and we’re not going to get overpowered. We maybe don’t have the mindset we need to close the game and win it. There’s no intimidation factor; it’s more execution factor than anything else.”