Finebaum thinks Kirby Smart took a jab at Dabo Swinney

Brett Davis - USA Today Sports

by Tony Crumpton - Assoc. Editor - Tue Apr 28 11:48:42 GMT-04:00 2020

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart was interviewed by Paul Finebaum last week and called out coaches that were negatively recruiting his team.

"You probably would believe it, but you wouldn't believe what some coaches outside our conference tell kids," Smart said to Finebaum. "They'll sell to a kid that it's better to not go to the SEC because it's too tough.

"It's too competitive, too physical. You might get beat up. You might get banged up, and you might not have as good of a career there you'd have somewhere else."

Smart continued to discuss college recruiting.

"Well, that's not the way the NFL GM's are looking at it, and that's not the way the NFL coaches are looking at it," he said. "They want to take kids that want to compete at the highest level, that want to go play in those big-time match-ups, and that's what the kids want. They want to go play in the biggest games in the biggest places, and that's what they aspire to do.

"So, for a coach in maybe another conference to sell, 'Hey, it might be an easier path to come over here and go this way,' it just speaks volumes. You want kids to be able to see through that."

Finebaum told Birmingham-based 94.5 FM radio on Monday that he thought that Smart was talking about Dabo Swinney.

"This is an opinion, let me make that clear, but yes – it was a shot at Dabo Swinney," Finebaum said. And as he was saying it, I thought it was pretty obvious that it was because he was talking about recruiting. I’d have to go look at the transcript, but it left no doubt, he was talking about Dabo Swinney because of the proximity in the recruiting battles.

"If there’s no one else that could be in consideration because Ohio State would not be doing that, based on their recruiting prowess. And I really, you know, if you go outside the SEC, who else really matters? Clemson is the only threat to Georgia outside the SEC for most players. So, I don’t think he really left much to the imagination, and it was toward the end of the interview, and he had to go do another interview. Otherwise, I may have tried to, you know, be a pesky reporter, but that’s who I thought he was talking about. Absolutely."