University of Georgia: NFL Factory

Message to perspective recruits: If you want to play for a perennial top-10 program, compete in the best conference in America, graduate from one of the top public universities in the country, and develop your skills to give you the best chance of going to the league, son, you cannot make a college choice better than the University of Georgia.

As I previously wrote in my two-part series on why the Bulldogs' Mark Richt is the best coach in college football, Georgia has become the NFL's third best talent factory behind only Miami and Ohio State. A total of 32 players coached by Richt at Georgia have been drafted over the last five years.

Schools with the most number of draftees over that period: Miami (42), Ohio State (39), Georgia (32), Florida State (31), Tennessee (30, USC (28), Florida (27), Oklahoma (26).

It should be noted that Jim Donnan really increased the number of NFL-caliber athletes in the Georgia program. For all his celebrated recruiting classes, Ray Goff did a horrible job of developing NFL talent, as he only coached 17 players who were drafted over an seven-year period (1990-96).

Donnan had 22 players drafted over a five-year period (1997-2001). That number included six players in his last draft class of 2001. However, that number does not include the 15 players Richt had drafted in his first two years at Georgia, all of whom were recruited by Donnan and Donnan's staff played a great part in the development of many of those players.

In other words, Georgia fans should really appreciate Jim Donnan's efforts of not only restoring Georgia into a top-25 program, but also giving the school the ability to sell itself as an NFL factory.

Richt, though, has made a Georgia into a top-10 program and one of the top five NFL-producing schools in the country. According to UGA Sports.com, Georgia's last five recruiting classes have been nationally ranked by Rivals.com as No. 4 (2002), No. 6 (2003), No. 6 (2004), No. 10 (2005) and No. 4 (2006).

In other words, expect the talent flow from Athens to the NFL to continue in the upcoming years. If you follow UGASports.com's Chad Simmons' daily recruiting articles http://uga.rivals.com/, you see perspective recruits often mentioning Georgia's propensity to produce NFL players as one of the reasons they are considering Georgia.

Unfortunately, though, most of those players making the comments play defensive line, tight end, linebacker or safety; because the Bulldogs do not have great depth at some positions in the NFL.

As a hobby, I have long followed the professional pursuits and progress of former Georgia players. The two articles below are unofficial tallies of all current professional Bulldog players and their status on their respective teams. Please contact me or just comment below the article if you know of any players I missed, particularly those in secondary leagues. Tomorrow I will put together my 53-man professional roster of former Bulldogs. Outside of Miami writers, I dare bloggers of any college football team to field a better roster.