Be its commissioner, Greg Sankey, or various head coaches across multiple sports, the SEC and its leaders aren't afraid to use their "bully pulpit" to speak on pressing topics facing collegiate athletics.
Speaking Tuesday at SEC Spring Meetings in the Florida Panhandle, Kirby Smart joined the fray.
Georgia's two-time national championship-winning head coach uncorked a four-minute monologue on the NCAA Transfer Portal window for college football, an element he deemed the single-biggest issue right now for the sport.
"I think of this meeting, and I think everybody in this room [is asking] eight or nine [conference games], SEC Championship or not, [House] Settlement. The biggest decision that has to be made in college football, right now, by far to me, by far, is when is the Portal window and is there one or two," said Smart, whose Georgia team won the SEC's football crown last season and then was bounced from the 12-team College Football Playoff by Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. "That's not being decided by us today. A lot of people don't even know how it's getting decided, who's deciding it."
Smart, who noted the House Implementation Committee that is comprised of select Power Conference athletics directors will set the ultimate policy on the NCAA Transfer Portal window, made clear he wanted a single window in January and pushed back against a "growing" sentiment for a late-spring window.
FootballScoop earlier this month reported in-depth on the potential for a single, late-spring Portal window and that it could dramatically change the college football calendar to include NFL-style OTAs (organized team activities) in the summer months.
"I need you to think for a second. There is a strong contingent, we had an AFCA meeting, we had a meeting in which we unanimously decided that there really needed to be one Portal window, whatever that is is what it is, and it needs to happen sometime in January," Smart said. "There is an outcry, there is schools, there's different conferences that feel like it should not fall during the playing season. I would love that, I would love to be able to play the season without it. Is basketball able to do that or do they deal with it during their championship? During the tournament. What do we deal with, during the final four teams, I don't know if I'm exactly right on that but roughly we're down to four. We deal with that.
"That's because of the academic calendar for us, when the academic calendar falls, and everybody doesn't have that in congruence now. Oh by the way, we had to deal with that. Multiple times. It's not fun, it's not fun. It's really hard to be playing in a championship setting and having to deal with that. But when I brought that up as a complaint or a problem, it was told to me, 'There's no crying from the yacht.' So if you're going to play in these environments, you have to be willing to do that. Now, it's we can't do that."
Smart wasn't done.
"Then I got told, well, we have a cap-year. Cap-year runs July 1 to June (30 of the following year)," he said. "If the Portal is in January, we can't manage our cap. We can't do our cap. Well, that's an accounting method you've got to take into account. Some schools are trying to manage that and prepare for that..
"Why can't you just change when the cap-year is? Because the (House) Settlement is going to determine the cap-year. And it's going to be based on all the other sports in our sports programs, which is July 1 till the end of June."
It all had Smart siding with Texas A&M coach Mike Elko, who said he "couldn't imagine an NFL team getting halfway through the offseason and deciding to change their salary cap rules; that's what I guess we're doing [in college football]."
"I'm a big believe in what Coach (Mike) Elko said. I want to develop my team," Smart said. "I think it's really important in football to have your team your team at whatever date in January, whenever we decide that is, and then you work those guys out, you train those guys, you lift, you prepare, you do meetings. You do all this preparation and then that's your team, right? That's your team. And I'm great with the money they make, I'm great with them being able to go into the Portal. And if you ask kids when they would like to be able to go into the Portal, they're going to say in January because they can go get started where? At their new place. But there's a large contingency that's growing now trying to push an April Portal, maybe May that want to practice in June, have some practices in June. I want y'all to think about June for us: We've got 10 days of high school camp in June. We believe in using those, across the Southeast, we use 10 days. Some schools use 10, some don't use any. We also have official visits every weekend. So now we're going to practice our team in that same weekend? Something's going to suffer."
Smart then delivered his endorsement for a January timeframe.
"Needless to say, I'm a proponent for a January, wherever it fits, window," he said. "There's people saying we can't get our kids in academically. Well, they're getting mid-year high school players in in that same window. It's happening everywhere.
"So, I'm a big believer in that and I think that's the decision that has to be made, at least from a standpoint of SEC and bigger picture. Where is the Portal window and is there two or is there one?"