CLEMSON -- Most of the people reading this probably aren't big fans of Kirby Smart.
Most of the people reading this probably can't stand him.
But it's just a fact that Smart, who has combined with Dabo Swinney to win four of the last nine national titles in college football, is one of the leading voices in college football.
Just as Swinney and Nick Saban were when Saban was still doing his GOAT thing in Tuscaloosa.
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Times change, and now at SEC functions Smart is the coaching voice everyone seeks on major matters that have to be decided.
And boy are there some major matters that have to be decided.
The confluence of them is almost absurd -- so many that you tend to forget about an issue that would be the dominant story if it existed by itself.
Smart was well into his press conference yesterday at the SEC spring meetings when he was finally asked about transfer-portal windows.
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"I'm so glad you asked," he said.
The media laughed. Smart didn't.
"The biggest decision that has to be made in college football right now by far -- by far -- is when is the portal window, and is there one or two? That's not to be decided by us today. A lot of people don't even know how it's getting decided, who's deciding it."
Yeah, that last part is a bit of a problem affecting everything in college athletics and creating a chaotic feel.
At some point in the future, maybe actual leadership will crystallize. And you'd best believe the SEC and Big Ten are going to have the biggest say in that, evidenced by this from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey this week: "I have people in my room asking: 'Why are we still in the NCAA?'"
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At this juncture, all the oxygen in the room is being devoured by the House vs. NCAA settlement, by the future framework of the College Football Playoff, by whether the SEC will indeed move to nine conference games, and some other monumental stuff we might be forgetting.
As Smart rightly and forcefully pointed out, it's best not to forget about the transfer-portal issue. He said the AFCA had a meeting in which its membership unanimously decided there needs to be one portal window, and that it needs to be sometime in January (the current two windows are Dec. 9-28, and April 16-25).
“I think it's really important in football to have your team, your team, at whatever date in January — whatever 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? Like, that's your team,” Smart said. “I'm great with the money they make. I'm great with them being able to go in the portal. If you ask kids when they would like to be able to go in the portal, they're going to say in January, so they can go get started where? At their new place.”
Smart brought up something else portal-related we haven't heard talked about much:
Two portal windows can create havoc with the revenue-share world everyone assumes is coming.
In Clemson's case, after the Tigers' season ended in Austin on Dec. 21 everyone on the outside assumed the first order of business was Swinney making a change at defensive coordinator.
Nope. The most important item by far was focusing on roster retention. They worked on that for weeks, and they were wildly successful in assuring that not just the elite talent but almost all the talent returned.
But here's the problem with two portal windows in the revenue-share era:
You think you get a deal done with a player in January, and what's keeping him from trying to get a better deal in April after his agent has heard from other schools?
Maybe that's what happened with defensive back Tavoy Feagin, who was a mysterious scratch from the spring game and out the door not long thereafter.
Smart said there's "a large contingency that's growing now" pushing for an April or May portal and a new calendar that includes practicing in June.
“I want you all to think about June for us. We have 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 window? Something's going to suffer.”
The one positive of Clemson's loss in December was it allowed the Tigers' front office to focus on retention. Georgia's season was done Jan. 2 when the Bulldogs lost to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals.
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The semifinals were Jan. 9 and Jan. 10, and the championship between the Irish and Ohio State was on Jan. 20.
"We had to deal with that multiple times," Smart said. "It's not fun. It's not fun 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.'"
The media laughed. Smart didn't.
Sure, there are a lot of reasons for Clemson fans to scoff at anything Smart says and to curse at the mere sight of him.
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But everything is intertwined now for those that sit at the big-boy table, and even though Clemson isn't in the SEC or Big Ten it's most certainly at that table until further notice.
That table just happens to be a bit of a mess.
And who knows if college football's most prominent coaching voices, including Swinney and Smart, will actually be heard as the mess gets cleaned up. Or not.
