How does UGA recruit elite talent when it doesn’t throw NIL millions around?

In this era of paycheck players, how does UGA sustain that level of high school recruiting?

There are two ways to gauge Georgia’s current recruiting class — even after the Bulldogs have gone on a heater over the last week. The 2027 class has picked up seven commits this month, including four over the last five days.

That commitment tear bumped the Bulldogs from No. 24 to No. 9 nationally on the 247Sports team rankings. Rivals currently has UGA at No. 12 in the country.

There are some typical Georgia traits for this class, but there are also several “Un-Georgia” outliers.

The big topic of conversation that comes to mind these days is this perception: The Bulldogs are a cost-conscious program swimming in deep waters without very deep pockets.

There is a graphic circulating on message boards and social media depicting a Dollar General sign featuring the classic Georgia “Power G” swapped in for the script. That’s a dig at how Georgia’s shopping budget isn’t the same as what LSU, Miami and Texas access on the trail.

Is that accurate? While no public database is available, NILStandard.com has estimated college football payrolls. While the site’s data is approximate, according to what we’re hearing, their data is in the right ballpark.

The estimate for Georgia’s current roster is $35 million. That allows for $4.9 million for high school recruiting. The Bulldogs also spent $4 million on the transfer portal, but the bulk of the spending in Athens is earmarked for retaining current players, at $25.9 million.

When we’ve heard Smart share his strong opinion that he wants the players on his roster to get paid well but also wait to earn lofty NIL and revenue-share figures, it plays out in real time.

Georgia, with a few exceptions, no longer deems it wise to outlay large sums to unproven high school talent. The program has adopted the approach of putting its name, image and likeness money on the field to fund the first and second teams on the depth chart.

According to NILStandard, the Georgia roster has the 14th-highest payroll in college football. The only other top 15 school that spends as much of its payroll on roster retention as UGA (74%) is Notre Dame.

What do other schools spend? Here is NILStandard’s tracking for the 2026 season for schools with the top 15 program estimates.

USC had the top-ranked recruiting class last cycle. That $9.3 million spent tracks. There were published reports that the Trojans signed a 5-star tight end to a deal of more than $2 million annually.

LSU, Ole Miss and Texas Tech have also been very active in the transfer portal, which aligns with the NILStandard data.

This is also a snapshot of the 2026 financials. Not the 2027 recruiting cycle, where we’ve already seen major outliers with schools like Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Miami, Notre Dame and Florida.

It’s not a coincidence that those schools, in order, have the five highest-ranked recruiting classes at this time.

When it comes to the outlay for high school recruits, the Bulldogs ranked ninth for the 2026 season. The schools above Georgia, in order, were:

It should come as no surprise that every one of the schools in those 2026 estimates has won a recruiting battle with UGA in what ultimately seemed like a bidding war on the trail over the years.

If the Bulldogs lose a recruit to a school that spends more than they do, isn’t that what is supposed to happen?

This all leads to the really big question: How does Georgia retain one of the most talented rosters in the nation, or even in the SEC, when it ranks 14th in overall spending and 9th in high school recruiting spending?

The 2026 and 2027 rosters will still be deep. They will be as stout as anyone else nationally. But what about 2028 and beyond?

That is the contrast between the paycheck-prospect era and “The Georgia Way.”

How does Georgia still maintain its talent advantage of bringing in the average No. 2 class in America? Or will it have to rely heavily on initial evals and player development?

We’ve found some answers this cycle while discussing the matter with recruits and their families.

Paycheck players: Hunkering down against perception

It must be fleeting to be a fan of a team these days that isn’t playing to win. How can they attract recruits if they don’t win big or spend money? Or if it has not developed NFL players at a high rate? It would be nigh-impossible to put together a top 15 recruiting class in this era without high marks in all of those criteria.

How does Georgia rate in those core areas?

The Georgia brand was partly how they landed 5-star tight end Jaxon Dollar.

“A big part of it that kind of gets unvoiced is the culture there,” said Cameron Dollar, his older brother. “The people that these other universities are bringing in. Some coaching staffs, and you can see it, are a bit careless with who they bring in. Other coaches are super particular about who they bring in. For Georgia to still be able to only bring in guys that want to come in and compete and win games, that’s special.”

Georgia has positioned itself well despite the financial gaps. The UGA campus footprint was upgraded just before the NIL boom. The Bulldogs have top-of-the-line facilities, but that’s no longer vital for elite recruits. These days, there are numerous stories of recruits saying they will get dressed in a closet as long as their NIL check is golden.

While there has been a Smart or a UGA discount in the past, he now downplays it. Smart said in a recent interview that recruits now get offended by talk of any discounts.

Georgia spent to reel in 5-star running back commit Kemon Spell this cycle. Spell was the RB talent the program chased hard because there is a glaring need for star power at that position, beginning with the 2027 team. Georgia has made the final four for the No. 1 RB in the country several times over the last few years, but never won that battle. Those players came at a premium price.

There are still two 5-star recruits in this class. It will be an upset to sign a third. The days of UGA stacking up a class with four or five of those bluest of chips are over. Those prospects now cost too much to sign.

Strong negotiations were also necessary in the recent flips of 4-stars Jamir Dean and Kennedee Jackson. DawgNation has also learned that UGA has put in a very competitive bid for 5-star California DL Marcus Fakatou for this cycle.

That said, there’s the feeling some schools are playing by different rules. Or a different balance sheet. There are those who look at recruiting these days by a different term: player acquisition. That’s why LSU coach Lane Kiffin builds his roster with an NFL template.

Texas A&M has the nation’s No. 1 class. It is flush with five recruits who have a 247Sports Composite 5-star ranking. They have also been crystal ball predictions logged for the program to sign another four or five 5-star recruits.

While the Aggies did the same thing back in 2022 (eight 5-stars), this feels different. That’s because signing a 5-star class that big will require an outlay of $12 million to $15 million for their first year on campus. The math there doesn’t mesh with how NCAA programs are expected to operate under a $20.5 million total athletic department budget, including $17.5 million for football.

How UGA still wins recruiting battles in the NIL era

The Bulldogs signed three top 10 linebackers in 2023. They signed another two 5-stars in 2024. They signed the nation’s No. 1 LB in 2025, but haven’t been among the final group for one of the nation’s top 5 LB prospects since.

It has grown too expensive these days. Especially with almost all of those 2023, 2024 and 2025 LB signees still in Athens. Georgia can still sign its top LB target, but the days of also bringing in the top target from dozens of other P4 schools as the second or third LB in a class are gone.

How much do recruits still pay attention to Georgia’s NFL development? Class of 2028 4-star elite OL prospect Kweli Fielder said something earlier this year that stood out. His high school teammate, Zykie Helton, turned heads this spring as a midyear enrollee. He even started at guard at G-Day.

Helton told Fielder something about UGA that really stood out

“You’re going to get money, of course,” Fielder said, “That’s college football now with NIL. But if you want to go to the NFL and you want to get developed as an O-lineman, then come to Georgia. Georgia has that. It sends O-linemen to the NFL every year. That’s amazing.”

Any school can cut a check to sign a big recruit. But that runs counter to one of Smart’s core philosophies. If it takes a bidding war to sign a player, that doesn’t mean the player really wants to be at Georgia.

When things get tough for young freshmen in Athens, and they always do, it doesn’t give them anything to fall back upon except the dollar signs. That has proved to be fleeting so far. Smart detailed that philosophy to a 2027 recruit earlier this year.

“He doesn’t want people in the program who don’t want to be there,” 3-star Washington commit Reis Russell said. “I think he really drives that point home. He talks about how hard it will be. You are going to be put through it and if you don’t want to be there, then it is not the place for you.”

“He says, ‘If you want to be a part of this, then we want you,’ but if you don’t think you can handle this right now, sitting in his office, then this is not the place for you. He only wants guys that want to be there, who want to work and want to buy into this process.”

Buying into the process is not the same thing as buying players.

There are now 10 commits with 3-star rankings in the 2027 class. That is easily the all-time high for a Smart class. That’s 58% of the class. Smart’s first class was made up of 38% (8 out of 21) 3-stars. He hasn’t had a class since where 3-stars made up more than 27% of the signees.

There are three thoughts to keep in mind there:

There are a lot of players, especially in-state, that would’ve signed with UGA just two or three years ago. That’s how much things have changed here quickly.

It is the sign of the times in this current NIL-driven player acquisition model.