College Football is changing by the day, and in some cases by the hour.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has let his thoughts be known regarding transfer portal rules as well as the College Football Playoff format.
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Smart has largely been an advocate for widespread regulations across college football by the NCAA, to enforce the same set of rules for each conference to abide by. But during SEC spring meetings, Smart shared that if agreements can’t be reached in the near future then he would be in favor of the SEC departing from the NCAA altogether.
“I’ve been a huge advocate that if we can’t find rules that everybody plays by, then we should play our own,” Smart said. “I’m not afraid of that. I’m not afraid to break away and say that our conference is strong enough to go out and play.”
“If we can’t find rules that everybody plays by, then we should play our own. I’m not afraid of that. I’m not afraid to break away and say that our conference is strong enough…” – Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart pic.twitter.com/gwpAc1wthb
— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) May 26, 2026
The biggest caveat to the separation would be the overall funding of sports outside of football which Smart is aware. But if a system could be figured out, Smart doesn’t see how it would be a bad option.
“I mean, if we could actually function, and it financially would make our programs more stable and we could support things financially — I’m talking all the sports — and do by our own rules, I’d be all for that,” Smart said. “I mean, I’ve been to this meeting now 10, 11 times, and it’s frustrating at times to say, ‘Well, we can’t do this because of litigation, we can’t do this because of litigation, we can’t do this because we’ll get sued, we can’t do that.'”
In large part, the NCAA must strengthen its grip on college football before the very programs that support it take their talents elsewhere.
Patrick Dowd is a contributor for Ball Exclusives. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
