MIAMI — Kirby Smart is all about efficiency, offensively and defensively on the field, and with his time allotment off of it.
That’s why the eighth-year Georgia head coach spends his time figuring out how to maximize rule changes rather than complain about them.
Smart, whose 12-1 Bulldogs arrived in Miami for Orange Bowl prep on Tuesday, shrugged off challenges of having an open portal transfer window amidst the bowl season.
“We’ve been dealing with that how many years has it been like that, .. three or four?” Smart said, asked at the Miami airport if the timing of the portal window is problematic.
“They shrunk it some this year, reduced the number of days. I don’t think they got what they wanted to get out of that.”
Smart has taken the approach that the transfer portal is a “good thing,” noting it presents opportunities for players who might not otherwise get them.
It also has provided Georgia with an opportunity to land impact players at need positions, such as dynamic Florida transfer tailback Trevor Etienne.
First things first, the Bulldogs have some business to finish at 4 p.m. on Saturday against undefeated Florida State.
Georgia will be missing injured projected first-round NFL draft picks Brock Bowers and Amarius Mims, neither of which traveled on the charted Delta jet from Athens.
All of the other Bulldogs starters did make the trip and are expected to play, as Smart has built a strong team culture where players want to play for one another and build on the program’s legacy.
That’s why Smart doesn’t have the same sort of complaints as other coaches who are having top players opt out.
“I don’t have complaints about it because they want kids to have this flexibility,” Smart said. “My biggest problem is trying to finish what you started, and finish the season.
“It’s slowly making the bowls harder to deal with for people, but not really for us, because the kids we have are all in and doing a great job.
“So it’s not been a big issue or a problem for us.”
Georgia will begin its practices in South Florida at Barry College on Wednesday.