TAMPA, Fla. — By one measure, Georgia enters this season with the youngest roster within the nation. That appears hazardous in a school soccer world the place current nationwide champions — from Indiana final season to Georgia’s 2021-22 groups — had been heavy with expertise.
Kirby Good, nonetheless, mentioned the youth is by design: Regardless of the success of different applications which have embraced the switch portal, Good is utilizing his cash to retain his personal recruits.
“We’re younger, nevertheless it’s not an excuse. We’re going to be younger yearly as a result of we nonetheless consider in a highschool mannequin,” Good mentioned Tuesday at SEC media days.
Whereas Georgia has taken transfers — together with a number of who could also be starters this season — it has largely handed on the massive names, exiting bidding wars for gamers corresponding to receiver Cam Coleman, who went from Auburn to Texas.
Georgia retained 26 of 27 members of its 2025 recruiting class, which ranked second nationally and included 4 five-stars. The one participant misplaced was cornerback Dominick Kelly, a four-star who transferred to Ohio State.
Georgia additionally nonetheless has nearly all of the 30 gamers from its 2024 class, together with all 11 who had been ranked within the high 100.
That’s in all probability why Georgia has a roster with a median age of 19.81, per knowledge compiled by RotoWire. Nonetheless, Georgia has lots of gamers coming again: seven of its defensive starters, quarterback Gunner Stockton, the 2 main rushers and three offensive linemen.
That occurred as a result of Georgia spent to maintain gamers, together with freshmen who didn’t play a lot final 12 months, moderately than changing all of them with skilled transfers.
“I select to retain,” Good mentioned. “We expect that our funding in our participant is best than your funding in your participant that I might get from you within the portal. So we simply hold pondering that if we pour it into our guys, that our growth goes to be higher than taking a man that’s second, third, fourth 12 months, that someone else developed.”
Good additionally threw shade at coaches (unnamed) who flip over their roster by way of the portal. He didn’t deny that Georgia additionally encourages sure gamers to depart, nevertheless it’s not the popular technique.
“There’s coaches on the market that don’t select to retain. You hear their gamers select to depart, however not all the time. They’re inspired to depart,” Good mentioned. “Whenever you’re upgrading on the expense of telling somebody they obtained to go, if that occurs, perhaps that’s not the tradition that’s ethically or morally proper, and we don’t actually wish to do this.”
Many of those different applications use the portal on account of teaching modifications, or fast fixes after poor seasons. Good, getting into his eleventh season, has the luxurious of being in place for some time and having the ability to use his program’s success to recruit.
Nonetheless, the final couple of seasons have proven hints of slippage: Georgia’s 2026 class at present ranks twelfth nationally, per the 247Sports composite, and the Bulldogs have missed on some five-star targets. And this 12 months’s freshman class solely ranked sixth, the bottom since Good’s first 12 months.
Good mentioned that entry to cash isn’t a difficulty for his program. It’s a results of decisions made on a player-by-player foundation, as a part of an overarching philosophy.
“There’s by no means been one thing that I requested our administration to do a few quantity to go to, to get a participant out of the portal or get a participant in highschool that they weren’t keen to do,” Good mentioned. “That’s in all probability extra in-house for us philosophically, how we wish our roster to look, how we wish our cash to be unfold throughout. Highschool gamers these days aren’t any cheaper than portal gamers. Particularly good gamers. However we put our cash the place we expect it’s finest, and to place the very best product we are able to on the sphere.”
