The increase in Georgia-Florida ticket prices got most of the attention yesterday, but one item in the budget is going to have a lot bigger impact on the lives of Georgia’s student-athletes:

Georgia is spending $737,000 on what it calls “student-athlete welfare” – adding two new nutritionists, a sports psychologist, a training table meal and a mentor program for football.

The nutrition of Georgia’s football players has been in the news this offseason as the program revamps its conditioning program. But a rough initiative to eliminate junk food isn’t the same as a proper sports nutrition program, and that’s what this expense will help launch.

It’s so surprise that Greg McGarity is putting resources into wellness programs. He only had to look to his experience at Florida to get an idea of what was missing in Athens. Have a look at Florida’s “sports nutrition services” program. The program includes “two full time Sports Dietitians,” and it’s no coincidence that Georgia’s budget also specifies two nutritionists. Of course it’s not an approach unique to Florida or Georgia – bringing in a nutritionist was one of Jimbo Fisher’s actions in his first season as FSU head coach last year.

With this item, McGarity is doing just what fans hoped he would. He saw a shortcoming, drew on his years of experience at Florida to understand what other top programs did, and now he’s spending the money to bring Georgia into line with best practices. He might even be putting his own touch on the concept of student-athlete wellness with the sports psychologist and football mentoring program.