re: Class of 2016 Recruiting MEGATHREAD: Waiting On Demetris Robertson Edition

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*** Kirby Smart: 'It never stops. It's 365 recruiting'
Charlie Potter

Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart was in Georgia for some time off at his place on the lake this week and took some time to sit down with the guys from 680 The Fan to talk recruiting. Smart is widely known as one of the top recruiters in the country, but he revealed that it is no easy task.

“It never stops. It’s 365 recruiting. So we’re recruiting non-stop,” Smart said on Monday. “At least in pro ball, they sit back and kind of enjoy it. They’ve got rules, they can’t be around their players. But for us, it never really stops, recruiting, but least the football stops.”

Smart sticks to the mindset that some other assistant on another team is working one second longer than him. That keeps him glued to his phone and social media and prevents him from much free time at all, except these few weeks in the summer.

“That cell phone you’ve got, these smart phones, will be the death of college coaches,” Smart said. “Every college coach I talk to won’t say it on record, but everyone’s thinking ‘Should I go to the league?’ Because you don’t have the same requirements, it’s different, the hours are different. But the recruiting is non-stop. My phone, I’m on the boat today, it blows up non-stop.

“… You can put the phone down, you can put it away in pro ball. There’s three of four months where players, they’ve got all stuff going with the Collective Bargaining Agreement where you can’t do certain things. You can only be out there a certain amount of time. You can’t do certain things. Where for us, it’s non-stop. I’ve got recruits that’ll text and call and do everything in the middle of the night, and I’m thinking ‘Well, I’m with my family.’ But you’ve got to dedicate time to that or you can’t do it.”

That dedication also comes on vacation for Smart and the Alabama assistants, who have their phones by their side even then.

“I get a direct message on Twitter, ‘Coach, I’m coming to Tuscaloosa in a week.’ I’m thinking ‘Well, I’m not going to be there. Who’s going to be there? I’m on vacation.’ So you’ve got to find somebody to cover up, go spend time with them, because if you don’t, somebody will,” Smart said.

“And that’s the part I say college coaches are always looking to go (to the NFL), because if you’re not a niche recruiter, if you get older or less active as a recruiter, you become less valuable.”

Smart is obviously a valuable asset to the Crimson Tide, as he received a pay raise in June. But head coach Nick Saban still expects nothing short of the best from his long-time defensive coordinator. Saban never lets up when it comes to recruiting.

“Absolutely,” Smart said. “Every day you’re behind in recruiting with him. We’re never ahead. We might think we’re ahead, but he makes sure that we understand that ‘Hey, we’re way behind, why aren’t we doing this? Has this kid been here? How many kids have been here in a five-hour radius? Why aren’t they here? What’s the reason? The top players in the country need to get here. It’s constant, and you always feel like it’s fourth and one.”

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