Georgia No Longer “Blue-Chip Ratio” Leader in College Football
From the moment he was introduced as the Head Football Coach at the University of Georgia, Kirby Smart made it known that relentless recruiting would be a core element of his mission to elevate the Georgia program into the rarefied air of the truly elite programs in college football. Seven seasons and two national championships later, Georgia’s ability to acquire an extraordinarily high volume of the most talented prospects from around the nation has been the driving force behind the program’s ascent to the top of the college football world. On Tuesday, 247 Sports quantified Georgia’s remarkable success on the recruiting trail when it ranked Georgia’s 2023 team as college football’s third-most-talented team in its annual blue-chip ratio rankings.
As explained by Bud Elliott of 247 Sports, the blue-chip ratio identifies the college football teams that possess “ the minimum amount of talent needed to win the national championship.” Any team that has a roster composed of at least fifty percent “blue-chip” recruits - defined as four- and five-star prospects -“met the threshold as a national title contender.” This year, 16 teams met the standard laid out by Elliott and were included on the list of teams possessing the requisite talent necessary to realistically compete for a national championship. According to Elliott, “the Blue-Chip Ratio threshold does not guarantee a national championship, but a team not meeting it is almost certainly guaranteed not to win it all.”
For the second-consecutive year, blue-chip prospects comprise seventy-seven percent of Georgia’s roster, slightly down from eighty percent in 2021 when the program ended its 41-year-long national title drought. Georgia’s seventy-seven percent blue-chip ratio entering the 2023 season only trails Alabama and Ohio State who have blue-chip ratios of ninety percent and eighty-five percent respectively. Last season, the Bulldogs also ranked third in blue-chip prospects behind Alabama and Ohio State and ranked second behind Alabama in 2021 with an eighty percent blue-chip ratio.
Georgia and Alabama are once again among the most-talented teams in the country, according to 247 Sports' Blue-Chip Ratio rankings.
While the blue-chip gap between Georgia and Alabama has expanded from four percent in 2021 to thirteen percent entering the 2023 season, the Bulldogs are still stocked with the type of high-end talent required to compete for and win what would be an unprecedented third-consecutive national championship.
