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Georgia football: Kirby Smart knows how to move the NFL Draft needle

By Savannah Leigh

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA - JANUARY 10: Head Coach Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs celebrates after the Georgia Bulldogs defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide 33-18 during the 2022 CFP National Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium on January 10, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA - JANUARY 10: Head Coach Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs celebrates after the Georgia Bulldogs defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide 33-18 during the 2022 CFP National Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium on January 10, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images) /
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Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is no stranger to having players get selected in the NFL Draft, and since he got to Athens, the success has continued.

Four of the five drafts had at least one player selected as a head coach in his first five seasons. There have been 30 players drafted, including seven first-round picks.

However, this draft class will trump the first five because it will be historic. While draft classes like this rarely come along for any school, seeing the Dawgs genuinely have 14 guys who can have long NFL careers shows what Smart has done with this program.

Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart moves the needle for the NFL Draft.

When Smart took over in Dec. 2015, the expectations were high, but he continues to meet and exceed them. It’s incredible to see how much this program has grown in this short amount of time.

However, we will focus on the 2017-2021 NFL Drafts for this article. While he was around for the 2016 NFL Draft, those weren’t his players.

The Dawgs did see five guys drafted that year — Jordan Jenkins, Leonard Floyd, Malcolm Mitchell, John Theus, and Keith Mitchell.

Georgia has truly evolved throughout the last five draft classes and showed Smart’s changes to the program. While some say there are more five-stars in Athens, so of course, there will be more drafted, but that isn’t it.

The development is there, these coaches are preparing them in a way that wasn’t happening in Athens before Smart, and his staff took over the program. These players know what to expect and have prepared for this next chapter, and it’s honestly impressive to watch it unfold.

Smart is transforming Georgia into an NFL feeder school — not in the eyes of Dawg fans, but football fans across the country see it.

When you see 15 guys declare for the Draft, and 14 of them are highly likely to get selected, something is going right for that program. However, this situation isn’t like the 2019 LSU team because Georgia reloaded and will continue to see impressive draft classes as long as Smart stays the head coach.

Let’s dive into his draft classes and discuss what those players are doing.

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