On Sunday, the 62nd ranked national recruit for the 2020 cycle – QB Carson Beck – committed to Georgia.
This isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Georgia has been wiping the floor with just about everyone not named Alabama on the recruiting trail since Kirby Smart took over. Beck isn’t even close to the best recruit Georgia has gotten a commitment from recently.
But it’s emblematic of the issue that Florida – and the rest of the SEC East – is going to run up against in the next few years.
Georgia is poised to win, win big and win often.
Comparison to Alabama
Kirby Smart obviously has had some hiccups while coaching on the field. But nobody can question his recruiting chops.
Of course, that means that the natural comparison for Smart is his mentor Nick Saban at Alabama. It’s not a pretty story for the SEC.
Talent from previous four cycles for each Alabama national championship team under Nick Saban. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
In each of Saban’s national championship seasons, these are the cumulative number of 5, 4 and 3-star recruits that he signed in the previous four recruiting cycles as well as Alabama’s national recruiting ranking.
If we look at Georgia coming into the 2019 season, those numbers for Smart’s squad are 18 5-stars, 58 4-stars, 22 3-stars and a national recruiting average of 3.0.
Based on the analysis I cited by 247Sports regarding how often players get drafted into the NFL based on star ranking (62% for 5-stars, 23% for 4-stars and 5% for 3-stars), this should translate to 25.9 players from this particular team who will eventually end up being drafted into the NFL.
25.9 is an entire roster of starters, plus four more guys. So yes, Justin Fields is no longer at Georgia, but that hardly matters. The talent level in Athens is ridiculous.
In fact, the 2019 roster that Smart will bring into the season is slightly better than Saban’s. Over the past four seasons, the Tide have signed 14 5-stars, 68 4-stars and 20 3-stars. That should translate into 25.7 players drafted into the NFL.
So if you would feel nervous about your team facing Alabama, you should feel the same way about Georgia, because the Bulldogs have the exact same amount of talent – and more top-end talent – than the Tide.
Implications for Florida – and the rest of the SEC East
Dan Mullen has definitely increased the talent level at Florida. But that increase has had its limits.
As it stands, Florida will come into 2019 having signed 0 5-stars, 50 4-stars and 42 3-stars over the past four recruiting cycles. That translates to 14.1 players drafted. The good news is that is the second most talent in the SEC East. But the bad news is that it is still just sixth in the SEC overall.
Talent level from previous four recruiting cycles for each team in the SEC. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
The difference in talent between Florida and Georgia (11.8) is larger than the difference between Florida and Vanderbilt (8.9).
Additionally, the Bulldogs signed seven 5-star players in the 2018 recruiting cycle. Along with the losses of Nick Chubb, Sony Michel and other stars from the 2017 team that made it to the national championship game, those players were young in 2018. That meant that some thought that 2018 was the year for someone to “get” Georgia.
Florida lost 36-17 even though Kirby Smart made a ton of decisions that could be called questionable, at best. At some point, players matter.
For the 2019 schedule, just based on talent alone, Florida should defeat everyone in the SEC East except for Georgia. The problem is that the Gators also play Auburn and LSU from the West, both ranked ahead by this analysis. Florida State – for all of its issues right now – also ranks ahead of the Gators on pure talent alone.
Coaching and Development
I actually do believe that Dan Mullen develops talent better than his peers.
In fact, out of 169 3-star players that he recruited to Mississippi State from 2007-2015, 8.3 percent of those players were drafted, compared to 5.9 percent nationally. So if we apply that 2.4 percent increase across the board to 5, 4, and 3-star recruits, that raises the expected number of Florida players to be drafted to 16.3.
That is a significant increase. It puts Florida ahead of Texas A&M and Auburn and nipping at LSU’s heels.
Georgia last season had an expected draft number of 24.1. The Bulldogs lost to two teams with less overall talent (LSU, 18.2; Texas, 16.9) and one team with more talent (Alabama, 25.6). That means that a team with more talent can lose.
But it also likely means that there is a threshold where you have to get to in order to really be able to compete with a more talented team.
Takeaway
That’s why the commitment of Carson Beck to Georgia is such a problem.
It’s not that Florida lost out on one high-level recruit. It’s not that Florida absolutely has to have him to succeed at the QB position. Mullen likely already has someone he can get to play really well. It’s that a team that is loaded with talent continues to add elite talent, this time from the Gators backyard.
Georgia has 15 returning starters in 2019. And the Bulldogs are going to add the true impact of the 2018 recruiting class now that it has a full year of experience.
ESPN may be selecting another Clemson/Alabama tilt for the championship again in 2019, but if I had to put my money on someone, I’d put my money on Georgia.
They’ve had Alabama on the ropes for two straight years – with slightly inferior talent – the past two seasons. This year, there is no such excuse.
That may mean that we’ll find out that Kirby Smart just isn’t a good in-game coach. It may mean that we find out that the impact of Dan Mullen on his players was significantly understated at Mississippi State because he had to do so much with so many 3-star players.
Or it may mean that we find out that in the end, talent eventually wins out.
And if that’s true, then everyone is going to be looking up at Georgia for the foreseeable future.