Georgia's Kirby Smart bringing energy to recruiting

ATHENS -- Kirby Smart's first recruiting mission was to have his new group of players immediately buy in to what he's bringing as Georgia's new head coach.

When Smart met with the team for the first time following his official hiring, he gave them a slice of what to expect. As outside linebacker Davin Bellamy said, Smart's message resonated with most of the players, who seem ready to play for the man who coordinated some dominant defenses at Alabama during the past eight years.

"He had us all locked in," Bellamy said. "We were biting our jaws ready to work for him."

After Smart spoke to the team he's inheriting, it became time for him to spread that message to those he hopes to bring to Athens in the foreseeable future.

During his introductory news conference, Smart mentioned some variation of the word recruit 14 times and then talked about it further during a follow-up session with reporters. It's evident how much stock he takes in recruiting the nation's elite talent -- whether as an assistant at Alabama or as a head coach at Georgia.

With the active recruiting still in session for a few more days, Smart is using every opportunity available to convince players previously committed and still deciding to play for him at Georgia.

"I'm going from here to go out and start recruiting and use every minute I have of this contact period -- in fact, I'm ready to go right now to see some guys," Smart said. "I've got to go see them. I've only got so long to go see them and then it gets dead again and we go back to work on our bowl games and bowl preps. So we have a detailed list of people we're going to see and attack and see them one last time before it goes quiet again."

Since Smart was hired, five-star linebackers Mack Wilson and Ben Davis, of Alabama, announced almost immediately that Georgia had vaulted up their list of potential schools. Davis stated on his personal Twitter account that he moved Georgia to the top of his list.

Smart's on-field success at Alabama, plus his ability to woo recruits, has seemingly already paid off in a big way for Georgia in less than a week's worth of time. Jake Reuse, a recruiting analyst for the Rivals network's UGASports.com, believes Smart has the potential to strengthen what was already thought to be one of the nation's best classes.

"To have that kind of recruiting prowess and to be able to bring that right from the beginning, it's creating a lot of buzz, especially on the defensive side of the ball," Reuse said. "It could end up being a very special defensive class for Georgia, I think."

Smart's recruiting ability was one of the traits that drew Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity to hire him.

"Development in recruiting, development in all phases in your game," McGarity said. "You have a feeling about things like this, so it's hard to describe."

Reuse said Georgia could potentially do better in states such as Alabama and Louisiana based on Smart's success there. But more importantly, there could be an added emphasis on locking down the state of Georgia as much as possible.

"I think it will be very aggressive," Reuse said. "He's going to be even more focused -- not that (former head coach Mark) Richt wasn't focused on keeping guys in-state, but I think Kirby understands, having come into this state so often and pull guys out, just how much talent there really is in the state. He knows you're going to get beat out for some of these guys but I think his main focus is going to be getting in early, creating those relationships and making sure he's able to kind of control the top players in this state."

Smart has already visited quarterback Jacob Eason, defensive back Chad Clay and defensive lineman Julian Rochester. Recruiting is clearly a priority for Georgia's new head coach, which could help the Bulldogs in a big way considering the program is in a transition period from Richt to Smart.

"I've been real busy and I'm going to continue to be busy," Smart said. "But that's the relentless energy and passion. That's the reason I am where I am today. I'm going to do that recruiting. I'm going to do it coaching."