ATHENS — Kirby Smart doesn’t have a crystal ball, but the 10th-year Georgia head football coach has been in the game long enough to know a challenge when he sees one.

The collegiate athletics model is undergoing sweeping changes in the wake of the House vs. NCAA settlement -- which was dealt its final ruling on Friday -- and not all schools will be equipped to handle it the same.

RELATED: What House vs. NCAA settlement means for Georgia

Georgia is in good position to take care of its athletes, however, with athletic director Josh Brooks set to add more than 100 scholarships across the Bulldogs’ 21 sports programs.

Further, Brooks has indicated there will not be any cuts to UGA’s support system for its student-athletes.

Smart, however, foresees some other programs making cuts in order to sustain the new financial model.

Here are three areas Smart has discussed leading up to the House vs. NCAA settlement:

Student-Athlete Experience

“What you’re gonna see is infrastructure just go downhill,” Smart said last month in Birmingham. “So for instance, everybody’s got this ($20.5 million) pot to spend, right?

“Well, some schools (like Georgia) are going to be able to spend the pot and not hurt their infrastructure, their nutrition staff, the food the players eat, the strength staff, all the academic staff,” Smart said. “Other schools are going to say, ‘You know what, we’re gonna spend on players, and we’re not gonna spend on the infrastructure ….. ‘ , so the experience is gonna be diminished.”

Smart indicated it will be important for student-athletes to take notes when considering different programs.

“Kids are gonna say, ‘Yeah, I’m happy I’m getting money from such and such school,’ but you know what? You’re not getting a nutritionist, you’re not getting academic (support), you’re not getting the best food,” Smart said.

“They’re gonna have to say, ‘you gotta get that with your own check, because we’re paying you, you gotta go do that,’ “ Smart said. “And so now we’re not getting quite the same infrastructure that builds the core around the player.”

The End Of Walk-Ons

The settlement will allow student-athletes currently on rosters to finish out their eligibility before the roster limits take effect.

But once those roster limits go into effect — 105 for football — there will no longer be walk-ons in the football program.

Smart said on the SEC Network that will prevent capable players of walking on and eventually earning scholarships — something key Georgia players have accomplished in their careers.

“The opportunities that have been lost, it’s just really tough to swallow that,” Smart said. “A story like we had last year, Dan Jackson, who was a complete walk-on …. it’s not going to happen anymore.

“You know, those opportunities were lost and gone. They were kind of casualties of this settlement. And it, it gave us an opportunity to pay for and reward a lot of athletes in terms of compensation. But the feel-good story of the kid who did it for the love and the passion of the game, there’s probably going to be less of those.”

Smart said Georgia football will adapt to the roster limitations when they go into place.

“You might change your practice schedule a little bit, how you do things — you can’t have as many reps for as many players,” Smart said. “It will stunt some of the development because you won’t have the depth that you’ve had. You won’t have the same sheer numbers.

“But I don’t think that’ll affect us. If we’re able to keep spring practice and do a lot of the things we do currently to develop our rosters, that, that’ll stay in place.”

Smart said that, with players now able to get paid, some have elected to stay another year in the program to improve their NFL Draft status.

“We’ve had a lot of kids that have decided to stay in school an extra year,” Smart said. “Less kids coming out early because they get a chance to be compensated for that year. I think that’s so rewarding. I think that’s a great thing. I just hope that continues.”

Pending Salary Bubble

Smart said prior to the settlement that he anticipated some programs could be challenged to stay within the $20.5 million cap after paying large amounts to incoming players.

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“What’s going to happen, there’s probably going to be a bubble or a spike (in players’ salaries),” Smart said, noting the negotiations that took place prior to the settlement did not take the $20.5 million cap into consideration.

“At the end of the day, it may backfire because there’s going to be a correction in the market at some point when this cap hits,” Smart said.

“If the cap ($20.5 million) is truly what the house settlement wants it to be …. if you just keep trying to front load and pay out people — and what’s going on in basketball now and football now (April and May), people are trying to beat a date, then what’s going to happen when those people expect that same money the next year and it’s not there because you’re in a cap?”

There are sure to be other unintended consequences for programs to manage, but Smart and Georgia have already taken steps to ensure their programs will continue to operate effectively without making any sacrifices to the student-athletes’ experiences.