The audacity of Kirby Smart is genuinely something to behold. While the rest of the SEC spent the last week rage-posting about Lane Kiffin's Vanity Fair segregation metaphors and a five-star edge rusher's father issuing YouTube rebuttals to anonymous internet commenters, Georgia's head coach was quietly running the most productive heist since Ocean's Eleven.
On June 13, Smart pried 6'6", 301-pound offensive tackle Kennedee Jackson away from Florida — a kid who had only been committed to the Gators since June 2nd. Eleven days of being a Florida commit. Eleven. That is barely enough time to get the welcome email from the athletic department. Jon Sumrall, who inherited Florida's head coaching job and presumably its recruiting momentum, got introduced to the Kirby Smart experience in real time: you think you closed, and then you look up and the kid is wearing red and black saying his dream school was Georgia all along. Classic.
That was just the opening act. On Monday [June 15], four-star wide receiver Jamir Dean of Alcoa, Tennessee, flipped from Penn State to Georgia, making it the third commitment flip in two weeks for the Bulldogs. Dean needed exactly one official visit to Athens to go from Nittany Lion commit to yelling "GO DAWGS" on Rivals. Penn State's wide receivers coach Kashif Moore, in his first year rebuilding Happy Valley's class, is currently staring at a ceiling somewhere processing what just happened. This morning [June 16], Georgia added yet another commit in three-star DL Marcellus Young Casario. Kirby Smart in June is a garden party where you're a guest and then you realize you're the food.
Meanwhile, in Baton Rouge, Lane Kiffin continues to exist at the center of the universe without anyone being entirely sure how. His Vanity Fair interview — in which he explained that some Black recruits and their families were hesitant about Oxford's history of Confederate imagery — generated a week of national debate, a former player's emotional rebuttal on X, and an "if" apology. An "if" apology. "I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended." Sir, the word 'if' should be surgically removed from all apology formats. At SEC spring meetings, Kiffin was asked about his return to Oxford on September 19 and responded, "I'm not even there yet," which is either very zen or complete cope, and I cannot determine which. Tickets on SeatGeek already start at $420. Something is happening in that stadium and the college football gods are rubbing their hands together.
The cherry on top of this deranged week: the father of five-star edge rusher Jaiden Bryant, who flipped from LSU to Miami in early June, took to YouTube to defend the move after internet strangers accused his son of bag-chasing. "We wasn't a priority to them so we went to where we were," Jesse Bryant wrote. "Get out your feelings, you too old for that." Correct, sir. Also, this is a YouTube comment section, and yet here we all are.
LSU responded to losing Bryant by landing KJ Green. The machine keeps churning. Georgia keeps flipping people. Kiffin keeps generating headlines for everything except football. Somehow it is only June.
