Title of Linebacker U Belongs to Georgia Football and It's Not Even Close
During a time with no sports going on, writers and content creators have been forced to become rather creative to find talking points in order to engage their audience. One of the popular ways we've seen people go about this is in football circles is to collect data on positional success from college to the professional ranks.
NFL.com has gone about creating their own version of doing this in a series called "Pipeline to the Pros" where they connect draft positioning to early career success, awarding points along the way, and tallying the scores at the end.
With linebacker alum such as Kendrell Bell, Justin Houston, Alec Ogletree, Will Witherspoon, Leonard Floyd, Boss Bailey, Thomas Davis, Jordan Jenkins, Roquan Smith, Jarvis Jones, Lorenzo Carter, among dozens of others, Georgia finished with a 517.5 on their scoring system.
Alabama finished second with 458.5. A 59.0 point gap between first and second place was the largest between any of the schools listed on the Top-10.
NFL.com actually interviewed Roquan Smith to talk about his decision to choose Georgia. A lot of fans may remember Smith was once a UCLA commit before flipping to the Dawgs and choosing to stay home.
"There was some pressure – people wouldn't say it, but you can feel it in the air because everyone is a huge Georgia fan, they expect you to look at it like a no-brainer." - Smith on the pressure to stay home and play for Georgia.
Despite Georgia's long history of success in terms of developing linebackers, Smith was the first Bulldog to win the Dick Butkus Award, given to the nation's top linebacker.
"Knowing all the great linebackers who've come through Georgia, knowing that I was the first to receive that award, that was insane. I was blessed, honored, and really shocked for awhile."
Despite losing out to Clemson for one of the premier in-state prospects in Barrett Carter, Georgia is still in the running Smael Mondon who will choose between Georgia, LSU, Auburn, Tennesse, and Florida. Mondon undoubtedly is feeling that same in-state pull that Smith spoke about, and Georgia's ability to translate highly recruited athletes into high draft picks such as Roquan Smith is something that few other schools can offer. At least at the rate that Georgia has done over the past several years.
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