Before Kirby Smart’s Georgia team went 12–1 in an eventual national championship season, the Bulldogs head coach was “ready to step down.”
The COVID-19 pandemic halted in-person recruiting and created a dead period until June 1 last year, causing an influx of visits that left the coach and his staff feeling burned out.
“I was ready to step down,” Smart said at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention Tuesday, per ESPN’s Dave Wilson. “I was done. We had kids every day from June 1 to June 28. We had caravans showing up from the Atlanta airport at midnight, and they wanted to go in our indoor and work out at midnight because they had to go to another school at 7 in the morning.