The Georgia Bulldogs earned their biggest regular season in years this past weekend with the epic classic in Tuscaloosa to beat the Alabama Crimson Tide in their own building for the first time in almost two decades.

It was the first time Kirby Smart has defeated Alabama in the regular season as well as being a definitive statement to the rest of the country that this may be the best team in all of college football. While everyone else has focused on huge additions through the transfer portal though and high price tags during this era of college football, Smart has continued to build his teams and his way, with it becoming clear that Georgia is still the standard in this sport.

Smart was asked on Monday about his style of building a roster in today's day and age, and he says that it's not about the amount of stars on a player's name but whether or not they fit what he wants to do in Athens.

"We want good football players, we want high character kids that want to be at Georgia," Smart said. "We look for toughness, but who doesn't? We don't have these traits that are secret to us. We think it's more important what you do with your players than the players you get."

Smart went on to argue the talent dispersion between programs in the conference is not all that different, but that the process for developing them including mindset, lifting, schemes, practice style, culture and everything in between that ultimately is the separator.

Of course, every program emphasizes development, but Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs continue to live it day in and day out. This is a program in Athen that practices every bit as hard as it plays on Saturdays, and it is still the way to build sustained success in this sport.

It remains to be seen if it will pay off with a national title in 2026, but nobody doubts Smart and the way his program goes about things. In this decade, they have been and continue to be the standard, and Saturday night was evidence that this is not going to change anytime soon.

Kirby Smart knows what he is looking for when he decides whether or not he is going to bring a player into the program. If the biggest win in the regular season is years is any indication, he and this staff might just have a pretty great idea of what it is they're doing.