One thing Phil Steele tracks in his annual college football preview magazine is the amount of talent every program loses to the NFL draft.
… Basically I assign a point total for players selected in the different rounds of the draft and here is what the numbers have totaled.
Over the last 12 years teams that earned more points than the previous year and accumulated….
12 or more points – Weaker or same record 164 of 216 (75.9%)
24 or more points – Weaker or same record 47 of 55 (85.4%)
35 or more points – Weaker record 13 of 15 (86.7%)
We’ll have to wait another month or so for his 2018 assessment, but in the meantime, here’s Chase Stuart’s compilation of 2018 NFL Draft value by program.
You will not be surprised to learn that Alabama, Ohio State, and Georgia were the three schools that dominated the 2018 NFL Draft. Players from the Crimson Tide were taken using draft slots worth 83.9 points of value, the most of any school; second was Ohio State with 70.4 points of value, followed by Georgia (68.7)…
So, top three, with a bullet. Not sure how many of Steele’s draft points that translates into, but I’ll just point out that Georgia ranked second on Steele’s 2009 list and I think we all recall how that year went. The good thing is that the 2018 roster is far deeper than that 2009 team’s was. We’re about to find out if Smart’s got things to the reloading, not rebuilding stage in Athens.
Get The Picture 
Seeing that the underclassmen contributed nearly as much as the upperclassmen this year I think we’ll be alright.
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On it’s face it comes across as “well duh,” but then you get outliers like Alabama who manage to not be affected by draft losses. So, there might be a threshold at which programs gain “god mode” status and relegate worrying about the impact of players lost to the draft to the mere mortals.
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Bamas roster management absorbs the draft losses. Kirby’s following the model, if a kid isn’t performing for whatever reason he is replaced with another 4-5 star.
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Georgia’s got a foot in both worlds of those stats – a recruiting outlier who can withstand those sorts of departures, but also a program that just lost a really special senior class.
Going to be interesting, but I suspect Kirby will have them right back in the thick of playoff talk by November.
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Go look at that 2009 roster. It’s criminal how bad of a record we finished with that year. NFL players all over the place.
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It’s called Two Thumbs.
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Not to make exceptions, but to make exceptions (If I’m reading all this right), we did go from having the #1 player in the draft at QB to Joe Cox. So, I would also factor in a roster-importance factor.
I can lose a first-round guard and as long as I’ve got someone that’s at least decent replacing him, I don’t consider that nearly as impactful as the aforementioned QB situation. It happened again when Murray was gone and we had to chase down Lambert just to have someone serviceable.
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The psychology of losing AJ Green for the first 4 games didn’t help either.
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Agreed. Put AJ Green back on the field for those 4 games and the story changes significantly. Cox was more than serviceable, even if he did just wing it at times.
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Green wasn’t suspended in 2009. He missed the first four games of the 2010 season.
He was hurt in the latter half of 2009, though, and missed three games due to injury.
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It may not make much of a difference to the conclusion you’d draw, but I’d be more interested in performance metrics over won-loss record, if only because all 9-3s and 8-4s are not created equally.
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Not sure it’ll show itself in the wins or losses column, but I do think we’re going to feel the loss of so much top-tier talent this season. As much as the fanboys on the Vent want to think UGA is Bama-esque right now, I don’t necessarily believe UGAs roster is there yet.
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I agree. I feel like being better than they were last year, while replacing 4 all timers seems like a really tall order.
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Absolutely. I think UGA can still win 10-11 games, but that says as much about the schedule as it does about the team itself. But I’m less confident we’ll see as many blowouts. Last year was strange (for UGA fans, anyway) in that so many games were over entering (or early on in) the 4th quarter.
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Expectations have really gone through the roof. Normally 10 – 11 wins with a legitimate shot at 12 would be pretty good. But what if we go 10 – 2 in the regular season. Tell me what 2 teams we could lose to in the regular season that wouldn’t constitute a disaster. LSU and AU? SC and FU? I honestly think we should go 12 – 0 with our schedule. 11 – 1 at the worst with a fluke lose and still be in the payoff picture. Our season starts in the SECCG IMHO.
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CFB teams tend to lose games every year that when viewed on paper seem absurd. UGA avoided that last year in the sense that losing at AUB is certainly a likely scenario for most teams (though the manner if which it happened raised eyebrows).
So looking ahead and picking out losses is hard, especially when UGA will be better than every team it plays this year on paper. Having said that, road games in CFB are tough. UGA plays @SoCar, @Mizzou, and @LSU. Those are three games that stick out after the obvious one of Auburn at home.
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I agree with what you’re saying. Look at Ohio State last year. But if we lose 2 of those 3 to SC, Mizz, and LSU, man are there going to be some poked out lips. But I guess having the fans legitimately feeling we should go 12 – 0 is a good problem to have.
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I think if UGA is 10-2 entering SEC title game week it will be viewed as many as a bummer. Yet 11-1 is probably viewed as great. Funny how slim the margins can be.
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There are two teams where I think it’s possible for us to stump our toe, LSU & Aub. LSU because they have a talent level close to our own and an intimidating fan-base/stadium. Aub because of the results of our first game against them last season. But I don’t expect to lose both. My feelings will be hurt if we do but I want do any hating because it IS college football. SC at William Brice could be a distant third team to create some nerves, I guess, if my inner Munson is switched on.
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Sounds right to me. If I were ranking opponents based on difficulty I’d have them…
Aub
@LSU
@SoCar
@Mizzou
Florida
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Yep, the difference between 10 – 2 and 11 – 1 is huge. It’s easy to make the CFP with 1 loss, very difficult to do with 2.
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I believe this is right.
Drafts with 2 1st round picks
record before draft / after draft
2013 12-2 / 8-5
2009 10-3 / 8-5
2005 10-2 / 10-3
2003 13-1 / 11-3
2001 8-4 / 8-4
So UGA hasnt been great at replacing those big time guys. 11-2 and a NY6 bowl game would be a really great season for 2018.
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Kirby’s formula….this is going to be a throw away season while developing Fields and the D.
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Throw away seasons are like mulligans. You only get one.
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Damn, way to pop the balloon
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I feel better about our abilities to reload now more than before – due to Kirby’s propensity to turn over every rock in an effort to find players to fill ANY suspected ‘weak’ area after attrition (whatever the case). I also find comfort in our schedule. Even with our attrition, we are still better, talent-wise, than all other Eastern division teams. We’ve always been talented in the skilled positions but these days we have top talent at almost every position. I believe our OL will provide the ground-work to improve on an already potent offense and a talented defense (as good as or better than any) that will only get better with experience. I’m sure within a few years, some SEC East teams like UF, will close the talent-gap, but for now, the East is ours for the taking.
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