Kirby Smart Gently Replies to Mark Stoops' NIL Comments

University of Georgia head coach Kirby Smart took the high road during his Tuesday press conference when reporters asked him about comments made by Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Stoops.

"No reaction. It's much to do about nothing," Smart told reporters in response to Stoops' comments about Georgia's success with NIL (name, image and likeness) agreements. "Mark is trying to garner interest in money from his fan base for his collective. We're all trying to do the same in terms of trying get money for our collective. Mark and I talked about NIL pregame, and we talked about it in our meetings. I'm not biting on that."

The two-time defending national champion Bulldogs ended the Wildcats' undefeated season with a 51-13 victory Saturday at Sanford Stadium.

While Stoops has more wins than any coach in the history of the Wildcats football program, Georgia has continually bullied his squad. Stoops is 0-11 against Georgia since he arrived in Lexington. Georgia remained the top-ranked team in the country while Kentucky fell four places to 24th.

Following the lopsided loss, Stoops took a question from an upset Wildcats fan on his weekly coach's show. Stoops used the opportunity to plead to his fan base to contribute more money to the team's NIL collective, in which money from donors is pooled and distributed to players according to the NCAA's NIL rules that allow college athletes to monetize their name, image and likeness while maintaining NCAA eligibility.

"I just encourage them to donate more because that's what those teams are doing," Stoops said on the show that streamed on Kentucky football's Facebook page. "I can promise you, Georgia, they bought some pretty good players. You're allowed to these days. We could use some help. That's what they look like, you know what I mean when you have 85 of them. I encourage anybody that's disgruntled to pony up some more."

There's a belief among some that the use of NIL agreements create unfair disparity. The argument goes that the best players choose programs based on the money available via NIL. In short, some say, if you can't pay, you won't win at the highest levels.

That line of thinking leads to some coaches, likes Stoops, taking shots at the top programs like Smart and Georgia for "buying players."

While Smart sidestepped the question, UGA defensive lineman Zion Logue pushed back at the Kentucky head coach.

"It's the day and age of NIL. Everybody's sort of buying players or buying recruits. They're doing it," Logue told reporters after Tuesday's practice. "Other schools are doing it. It's about whoever can execute on Saturdays, it's not about money, it's about execution at the end of the day. You can buy whatever you want, but if they can't execute what are you buying for?"

Stoops' comments made their way around the conference. South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer, whose team lost to Georgia earlier in the season, also reminded his alums that money matters in today's college football landscape.

"We're going to have to be very active from an NIL standpoint, a collective standpoint," Beamer said Tuesday in his weekly press conference. "We've got some people who have done great things for our student-athletes. Thankful for them. Frankly, we need more of them, so I hear coach Stoops and what he's saying."

Smart and No.1 UGA travel to Vanderbilt for this week's contest for a noon ET kickoff on CBS. Stoops and No. 24 Kentucky host Missouri for a 7:30 p.m. ET game on SEC Network.