The 2024-2025 season brought some unexpected blows for Kirby Smart. The Georgia Bulldogs head coach had to accept the heartbreaking Sugar Bowl loss, then lost his quarterback, Carson Beck, who chose to swap wagons. Just when Smart might have let out an ‘enough is enough’ sigh, he got served some freshly baked blows. Thanks to the transfer portal. At the same time, confusion is building in Smart’s quarterback room, with Gunner Stockton falling prey to doubts.

Do you remember what Smart said about the transfer portal? Other coaches had problems with this transfer concept, but the Bulldogs’ head coach stood in favor of the players hitting the ‘SWAP’ button. He said, “If you’ve been in a program for three years…and you don’t feel like you’re getting developed…then you might need to look somewhere else, and that’s an OK thing.” And look how the tables turned. Georgia lost 15 players to the transfer portal during the winter window. Then came the spring portal, and Smart and co. ended up losing three more, making the count rise to 18 departures.

Meanwhile, several insiders have named the Bulldogs as the college team that spent its NIL money the best. Unfortunately, Smart’s squad has lost a $5 million NIL fortune, and now, as per On3 reports, their adjusted value stands at $4.3 million. Now, the Bulldogs’ head coach comes up with an unexpected confession…

Kirby Smart believes there is no bigger issue in the sport right now than the transfer portal window. He shared on the May 27th episode of The Paul Finebaum Show, “Every coach accepts the portal for what it is. I think the timing of the portal right now is really critical because it affects so many things. We have become a little bit more accustomed with the December-January portal; there is also an April portal… if it’s one portal, when will it fall? That becomes a really critical decision because it’s gonna affect people’s cap.”

Right now, the NCAA has two transfer portal windows—one in December (from the 9th to the 28th) after the regular season and another in the spring (April 16-25). Coaches usually prefer just one window, but there are worries about when it would happen, how it would affect the academic calendar, and what it would mean for spring practices. And this week, during the SEC spring meetings, Smart advocated for just one transfer portal window instead of two. He had pushed for that single window to take place in January. And he believes anyone who thinks players who want to transfer will stay on a team until April is being naive.

Finally, Smart feels that the transfer portal also has financial aftereffects. The players will be on campus, getting tampered with, collecting 33% of the program’s cap before they leave. In this process, Smart feels deeply for the future walk-ons. “The worst is probably the opportunity that’s been lost for the future walk-ons.”

What Smart wants is a sustainable system, because from his viewpoint, the current one doesn’t feel that way. While he fights for this change, he must also ensure his quarterback, Stockton, is skilled enough to silence critics.

Kirby Smart’s quiet clapback to Paul Finebaum’s blunt assessment

Well, we all know how it’s a next-to-impossible task to woo Paul Finebaum. Unfortunately, one of the most critical men of college football is not quite optimistic about Stockton. While Finebaum thinks that Smart is not aware of his critical commentary about the quarterback, he was surprised to learn about the head coach’s awareness. Well, quite an embarrassing moment, isn’t it? So, how did it go? 

On Tuesday, May 27, Finebaum was on SportsCenter when he was asked if Georgia would be “fine” or “not fine” with Stockton as quarterback. And as expected, the ESPN analyst did not mince his words while making a commentary on Smart’s signal-caller.

Finebaum said, “I would say that’s a big ‘not fine.’ I know the team coalesced around him after the SEC Championship Game, but I was underwhelmed by what I saw from Gunner Stockton in the Sugar Bowl loss to Notre Dame.” Later on, Finebaum had Smart on his show, and that’s when things took an interesting turn.

“I’m glad you missed an earlier interview I did on ESPN,” Finebaum said. To which Kirby Smart dropped a bomb: “Oh, I didn’t miss it.” The head coach then sounded all cool, “Gunner got the message. You did your job.”

Well, we can fathom where Finebaum’s doubts are coming from. Stockton is yet to push himself into the upper crust of SEC quarterbacking. While Carson Beck was put in the hot seat last season, he suffered because of Georgia’s offensive struggles. Now that they have revamped themselves, it’s time for the quarterback to hush the noise.