In this offseason, the transfer portal has been a one-way street for the Georgia football program. Over a dozen players have left Georgia and ended up elsewhere, including five at other SEC schools.

Georgia meanwhile has not added a single player from the transfer portal.

This isn’t some newfound stance that Georgia is against the transfer portal. Just a season ago, the Bulldogs brought in Derion Kendrick, Arik Gilbert and Tykee Smith from the transfer portal. If the right player is available, Georgia and Kirby Smart will certainly take a swing on a player.

Related: Kirby Smart calls transfer portal a ‘nightmare’

But as Gilbert and Smith demonstrated last season, a transfer player does not equal instant success. The two players combined to play in just one game. Kendrick proved to be a valuable contributor for Georgia, but he was an outlier in that sense.

Gilbert and Smith are both back at Georgia this fall, hoping to make an impact they could not make a season ago.

The best transfer portal news for Georgia this offseason came when offensive lineman Amarius Mims, a former 5-star prospect, actually elected to return to Georgia after initially entering the transfer portal in April.

Roster retention is the name of the game when it comes to the transfer portal for the Georgia program rather than addition.

There have been some recent rule changes that also explain why Georgia hasn’t felt as great a need to go out and add players via the transfer portal. Starting with the 2022 recruiting cycle, schools have been allowed to sign over the previous 25-man limit, and thus bring more high school prospects in during each cycle.

Related: What new NCAA rule changes mean for the future Georgia football

Georgia took advantage of that this year, signing a class of 30 prospects. That’s the most ever under Smart. Eighteen of those players were early enrollees, which is believed to be the most in the country for the 2022 recruiting cycle. The early enrollees were able to go through spring practice and get a jump-start on their college careers.

They were joined in Athens this month by the final 12 signees of the class. Those players greatly help fill some of the holes on the GEorgia roster, specifically at running back, wide receiver and cornerback. Georgia added multiple players at each position with its summer enrollees.

Another proposed rule change was in regards to the SEC’s transfer rule. Players who want to transfer to another SEC school must be in the portal by February 1 as it stands right now. At last week’s SEC spring meetings, schools debated on moving the deadline back to May 1, which is the NCAA’s deadline for when a player must be in the transfer portal and still retain eligibility for the coming season.

Smart shared his thoughts on the matter with a group of reporters. Though the proposal was never voted on, the Georgia head coach made it clear how he felt.

“You know, I prefer the way things currently are where there’s two windows as they are,” Smart said. “I think that it’s tremendously difficult to go through 3-4 months of workouts and spring practice and then have your roster change within your conference.”

Given that Georgia had five players transfer to other SEC schools, the Bulldogs figure to always lose more to the portal than they stand to gain, especially within the conference. Georgia recruits so well that it doesn’t make much sense to emphasize the development of those players, only to push them back down the depth chart.

Georgia has plenty of holes on its 2022 roster. That will happen when you have 15 players taken in the NFL draft and 13 more scholarship players elect to transfer elsewhere. Yet the right player who fits what Georgia was looking for never became available. There was no Kendrick this year when it came to the portal, even with Georgia having needs at safety and wide receiver.

The Bulldogs have recruited very well in recent seasons. They’re also shown they’re one of the better development programs in the country, with former 3-star prospects like Jordan Davis and Eric Stokes being recent first-round picks. That is why Georgia feels comfortable betting on its in-house talent at inside linebacker and the defensive line.

“The guys that want to be here? We’re going to coach them,” Smart said after G-Day. “The ones that don’t; we’re not going to chase after them/ We can’t. That’s their determination. We’re trying to create a culture of ‘I won’t be here and grow and get better.’”

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