Bulldogs Mock Draft Tracker 1.0

Although the 2023 NFL Draft is more than three months away, it’s certainly not too early to be speculating on which Georgia players will go where. Presented below is the initial version of this year’s Bulldogs Mock Draft Tracker.

After a staggering 24 combined Georgia players were drafted in 2021 (9, a then-school record) and 2022 (15, an NFL record for a seven-round draft), it appears this year’s draft total for the Bulldogs could be nearing double digits.

UGASports used the same five recognized/reputable sites, each featuring a mock draft: Drafttek and Lines, each of which projects all seven rounds; Walter Football and Tankathon, each forecasting the first three rounds; and Draft Wire, which projects the first two rounds.

Notably, the mock drafts projected nine different Bulldog players to get drafted. Five of the nine were forecasted by all five mocks (mocks’ average overall selection): Jalen Carter (3.4), Kelee Ringo (21.8), Broderick Jones (33.8), Nolan Smith (41), and Darnell Washington (58.2).

(Each player is followed by a projected round, overall pick in parenthesis, and selecting NFL team):

Considering individual players, a couple of things from the table grabbed our attention. Notably, only one of the mocks, Drafttek, projected quarterback Stetson Bennett to get drafted—and even then it was as a seventh-round pick. Yet, Bennett was recently mentioned by ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. as "probably" a third-round selection in the NFL Draft. Also, Nolan Smith, who missed the entire second half of last season with a torn pectoral muscle, has the biggest discrepancy in draft order. Smith is projected as high as No. 15 overall, yet as low as a middle third-round pick.

Fittingly, none of the 33 mock selections were made by the Atlanta Falcons. In 57 possible NFL drafts, only 11 Bulldogs have been drafted by the local professional team, including two last year (sixth-rounders Justin Shaffer and John FitzPatrick) and one UGA basketball player (Ray Jeffords in 1968). What’s more, the Falcons have never drafted a Bulldog offensive player in the first three rounds.

Finally, we took a look back at the nine former Georgia players in the table for their Rivals star ranking coming out of high school and discovered all of them, except two-star Bennett of the 2017 class, were either a four- or five-star prospect. All of them except Bennett were Rivals250 prospects, as well. Five-star recruits included Nolan Smith (No. 2 overall), Jones (No. 5), Ringo (No. 7), and Washington (No. 32).

Be on the lookout for version 2.0 within the next few weeks.