Alabama and Georgia meeting up again

Georgia will play Alabama in an all-Southeastern Conference national championship game Monday night in Indianapolis. How they got here is simply simple.

In one corner you have Nick Saban assembling the most star-studded teams — recruiting stars, that is — in recent college football history. He and his former Crimson Tide assistant coach, Kirby Smart, who now calls the plays for the Bulldogs, have been so far out in front of most of the competition on the recruiting trail that they were practically too talented to fail this season.

Both schools benefit from being located in the heart of the most fertile recruiting territory in the land, and pour huge amounts of manpower and resources into evaluating and procuring talent.

Says Bill O’Brien, the Alabama offensive coordinator and former Penn State head coach: “It’s a relentless approach to football coaches, and that’s what Coach Saban has done here and it’s been proven and it’s been awesome.”

Georgia and Alabama then consistently send these highly touted recruits on to the National Football League, which is the best recruiting tool of all.

There has been 247 Sports ranking the rosters of each FBS team based on the high school recruiting rating of each player since 2015. Bama and the Dawgs were not only No. 1 and 2 in the talent composite this season, but their rosters each received the highest scores ever recorded by the site.

Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning played in Division III  and his young coaching career has taken him to Pittsburgh, Arizona State, Sam Houston State and Memphis. He also did a one-year stint as graduate assistant at Alabama before coming to Georgia,

He says that when it comes to the sheer number of talented players at the SEC powers, there is nothing else like it in college football.

“Yes,” says Lanning, who has already been named Oregon’s new head coach,  “I mean there’s a big difference, a really big difference.”

Of the 85 scholarship players listed on the Crimson Tide roster to start the season, 74 were either four or five-star recruits that includes 14 five-star recruits. Its score in the talent composite was 1.000.89.

As for Georgia, it had the most five-star recruits on is roster this campaign with 19, plus another 47 four-stars for a talent composite of 1.000.79, with Ohio State third with a score of 985.89.

Only Bama’s 2017 team (997.57) had ever received a talent composite score higher than 991.

Then again, rosters can turn over quickly for the Tide and Bulldogs as blue chip high schoolers turn into college players who declare for the NFL draft after three years in school. That creates opportunities for freshmen to play right away.

But early playing time is far from guaranteed with these loaded lineups, although that doesn’t deter the top talent. For producing NFL players, Alabama leads the way with 51 draft picks in the last five years. Ohio State is the only school close with 43.

Georgia has had 28 during that period, but Smart only took over in 2016 and the Bulldogs are starting to gain steam. They had 23 draft picks over the last three seasons, including nine last year, and could produce as many as 18 in 2022 if every player who is eligible declares for the draft.

Meanwhile, the rematch is fast approaching. Will the Dawgs be fired-up and in quest of avenging the 41-24 loss to Bama in the SEC title tilt. They would like to get back to the top of the heap, but they will have be at the top of their game to get past the Crimson Tide, which has made a habit of disposing of Georgia.