Kirby Smart Sends Heartfelt Message to Laura Rutledge After Her SEC Nation Departure
Kirby Smart does not do warm and fuzzy at the podium. Wednesday at the SEC spring meetings was an exception.
Before Smart got to a single football question, he paused to acknowledge Laura Rutledge, who announced Tuesday that she is leaving SEC Nation after a decade. Smart’s tribute was the kind of thing you do not normally hear from him.
“Shout out to Laura Rutledge,” Smart told reporters. “I found out this morning that she is going to be moving on away from her SEC duties, but I have a lot of respect for her.”
That set the tone, but Smart was not done. He kept going.
“I feel like she and I have been in the SEC the same amount of time,” he continued. “With the tenure I’ve had and the tenure she’s had, she’s a good friend and a lot of respect for the work she’s done. I appreciate her service and wish her nothing but the best moving on.”
This is a notable moment because Smart is famously prickly with media. He has been short with reporters, dismissive of national pundits, and openly combative when he thinks coverage of Georgia has missed the point. For him to lead a presser with a non-football tribute to a broadcaster is unusual.
Rutledge has been a fixture of SEC football coverage for ten years. She walked into the SEC Nation studio in 2016, the same year Smart took over at Georgia. They have grown up in the conference together. Her departure announcement was emotional.
“Ten years ago, I walked onto this set not fully knowing what the journey would become,” Rutledge wrote. “Today, I walk away knowing it became one of the most meaningful chapters of my life.”
Rutledge is not leaving ESPN. She is leaving the SEC Nation studio role to focus on her NFL Live hosting duties and her work as a sideline reporter for Monday Night Football. That is a clear step toward the kind of national football coverage that pays more and reaches a wider audience.
The move tracks with where ESPN’s priorities are right now. NFL programming is the network’s biggest revenue driver, and Rutledge has been on a fast track within that side of the business for years. SEC Nation will get a new face on the desk, and the network will move on.
For Smart, this was about more than a goodbye. It was an acknowledgment that the people who cover the sport seriously deserve respect from the people in charge. Smart has not always shown that. On Wednesday, he did.
It also helps that Georgia is in a good spot. The Bulldogs are returning a roster that should compete for another SEC title. Smart’s program just signed another top recruiting class. He can afford to be magnanimous because his foundation is rock solid.
Rutledge is going to be fine. She is one of the most polished broadcasters in the business, and her national profile has been growing for years. The NFL role will only accelerate that. SEC fans will miss her, but football fans everywhere are about to see a lot more of her work.
And somewhere on a future MNF broadcast, Kirby Smart will probably tune in and nod.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
