Kirby Smart made a splash on Thursday with a helicopter tour of several top prospects, and the night ended with a high-speed police escort and the use of a live bulldog during a Periscoped in-home recruiting visit.

In other words, just another recruiting season.

The gimmicks get the headlines, but beneath the surface there is real work being done. Smart and his assistants are blanketing their top prospects and doing it in a very public way. Any new coach is in a tough spot – you have little more than a month to either establish or repair relationships with prospects that other programs and coaches might’ve cultivated for years. Georgia might or might not pull some big names on Signing Day, but it won’t be for lack of effort.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the tireless recruiting going on now just brings Georgia up to par. Within the past week we’ve seen Notre Dame park a semi truck in front of a prospects house. We’ve seen Nick Saban dancing. We’ve seen Michigan enlist Ric Flair – Florida fan – for some Signing Day wooooing. Again, the stunts aren’t really the point. It’s that other top programs and staffs have also been pulling out the stops, working around the clock, and sending some high profile coaches into the same living rooms. There’s not much new under the sun – Lane Kiffin was doing the helicopter thing six years ago.

On Sunday at a reception, retired Georgia basketball coach Andy Landers talked about the recruiting landscape. He pointed around Georgia’s state-of-the-art practice facility. Everyone has one of these now, he explained. Every school subscribes to the same recruiting scouting services to identify talent. Doing these things just gets you in the game, and it’s up to you to stand out among a crowded and competitive field.

It might be enough that Georgia is now in the ballpark with the rest of these programs in terms of effort and resources. It might be real progress just that Georgia is willing to spend on what might seem like extravagances in the name of recruiting. Georgia doesn’t get a particular edge relative to the elite programs, but it does allow Smart to make these recruiting battles competitive. The helicopters, the planes, the bulldogs, and all of the gimmicks open the door for Smart and its staff to get to what really matters: contact with their top prospects and the ability to discuss Georgia and the opportunities it offers.