ATHENS — This week, a new bill was proposed in the Georgia legislature that would make money college athletes earn NIL deals exempt from state income tax..

In the event the bill passes, it will give Georgia another added benefit of recruiting. Given how much emphasis Smart puts on bringing in talent on an annual basis, it’s important for Georgia to be able to attract the top high school prospects in the country.

And in the 2025 recruiting cycle, Georgia put a more specific emphasis on retaining players from the Peach State itself.

Georgia’s official 2025 recruiting class includes 21 players from the state of Georgia.

For comparison, Georgia signed 14 players from the state of Georgia in the previous two cycles combined. The 21 signees are the most ever for Smart in a Georgia signing class, and the most in a single Georgia class since the Bulldogs brought in 23 players from Georgia in the 2013 signing class.

Georgia didn’t just get quantity in this class, as it added three 5-star prospects from the state of Georgia, including the No. 1 overall player in the state in defensive lineman Elijah Griffin.

How much Georgia has leaned on in-state recruiting has ebbed and flowed under Smart. In 2021 and 2022, when recruiting rules was greatly altered by COVID-19 restrictions, Georgia leaned more on in-state prospects. In 2023 and 2024, the Bulldogs then began looking nationally again to land top prospects.

And much like how COVID impacted the recruiting industry, it’s fair to say that the transfer portal has impacted recruiting at the high school level as well. And being able to keep top prospects close to home might be one way to prevent future portal losses.

Of the 12 Georgia players to transfer out of the program this offseason, 11 of them were out-of-state prospects while in high school. The only transfer to play his high school football in Georgia was safety Jake Pope, who had actually transferred in from Alabama.

Georgia did a comparatively excellent job of retaining talent on its roster this cycle, as Texas was the only SEC school to lose fewer players to the transfer portal. While some may want to see Georgia be more aggressive in the transfer portal in terms of pursuing outside talent, it is for more paramount for Georgia to be able to develop and retain the top prospects it has on its own roster.

“Nobody has as much depth in college football as they’ve had in previous years. They never will again,” Smart said prior to Georgia’s game against Notre Dame. “There will never be a roster like the roster I got to coach at Alabama where we had three, four guys that were capable of playing. You had sophomore and junior offensive linemen that were waiting their turn to play, but they were NFL talent.

“That’s not going to exist because kids are going to be up and moving more often. And I think we have to get used to that norm, because that’s what it is.”

Just look at the 2023 recruiting class. Of the 26 signees in that class, 10 have already transferred out prior to their third season in Athens. Factor in the medical retirements of Pearce Spurlin and KJ Smith and almost half — 12 of the 26 — of Georgia’s 2023 signing class will not be on the roster next season.

That same recruiting cycle saw Georgia sign just five in-state prospects. That is the fewest ever in a cycle since Smart became Georgia’s head coach in December of 2015.

It should be noted that at least in terms of recruiting rankings, it was a down year in the state of Georgia. Per the On3 Industry rankings, the state of Georgia produced only four prospects that ranked in the top 100. For comparison, the 2024 recruiting cycle saw Georgia produce 13 top-100 recruits and then 15 in this 2025 recruiting cycle.

Georgia is one of the top talent-producing states on an annual basis. Smart knows this and it’s why the Bulldogs emphasize recruiting the state in the manner in which they do. Georgia wouldn’t have Smart and his assistants furiously crisscross the state during the month of January if it weren’t important.

Georgia won’t always keep those in-state prospects for the entirety of their college career. Of the 21 players that transferred out of the program following the 2023 season, eight of them were from the state of Georgia.

Recruiting and retention are the name of the game for Smart when it comes to roster building in 2025. And it seems the Georgia head coach very much wants to lean on the home state to keep Georgia’s roster among the best in college football.