Okay, so I splurged and signed up for ESPN+, mainly because I wanted to watch spring football and that’s where the vast majority of FCS games are. Getting Bill Connelly is a nice bonus, of course, but I also get access to curious exercises like Adam Rittenberg’s top 25 future quarterback power rankings, which purports to rank programs on the basis of their futures over the next three seasons at the position.
While optimistic (Daniels and two five-star recruits lined up behind him seems pretty stout to me), I wasn’t expecting Georgia to rank at the top of the list. That being said, I wasn’t expecting sixth, either, behind the likes of Alabama and Ohio State, both of which have to replace quarterbacks expected to go in the first round of the NFL draft with very inexperienced talent. Essentially, Georgia is dinged because, well, Georgia. (“Projecting Georgia’s quarterback outlook is one of the trickiest and most significant parts of this annual exercise.”)
To be fair, he had the Dawgs ranked 11th last season, which turned out to be unduly optimistic. And, try as he might to pump things up (“There are few guarantees in college quarterback play, but Mullen’s success with player development is pretty close to a sure thing.”), he’s got Florida ranked behind Georgia going into 2021.
One other thing: the only team on the list that Georgia will face over the next three season besides Alabama (okay, work with me here) and Florida is Clemson. In the quarterback-centric world that is college football now, that seems like a pretty big deal.