ATHENS — Georgia coach Kirby Smart is in Las Vegas for the NFL draft.
That makes sense considering more than half of last year’s national championship lineup will hear their names called from the podium there over the next three days. Specifically, Smart is there for Thursday night’s first-round festivities which, as one might imagine given the venue, are going to be extravagant.
Smart is going to participate in ESPN’s red-carpet walk to the enormous stage that was constructed over water in front of the fountains at the Bellagio Resort and Casino. He made an appearance with linebacker Nakobe Dean on ESPN’s “First Take” show Thursday morning, and he’s scheduled to sit in with the ESPN “College GameDay” crew around 6 p.m. today, according to UGA.
The Bulldogs have five players who are considered potential first-round picks – including possible No. 1 selection Travon Walker – and feature 16 players from the 2021 national championship team who received draft grades.
So far, 28 players have been drafted off of Smart’s six Georgia teams. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith asked Smart what has been the key to UGA sending so many alums to the NFL.
“First off, we have a great infrastructure,” Smart said. “We have a five-hour radium around Athens, Ga., that probably has some of the best football players in the country. So, we’re able to go recruit good players. And we have great support from our university.”
Sitting next to Dean, Smart pointed out that the Bulldogs’ star linebacker had to “cross over a state between Mississippi and Georgia to play football at UGA.”
“He did that, and he made the right decision,” Smart said.
Smart sat down briefly with WSB’s Zach Klein on Thursday afternoon to record a segment for the station’s hourlong NFL draft special, which will be televised at 7 p.m. Thursday. Dean, Jordan Davis, Lewis Cine and Travon Walker are among the Georgia players to be featured during the show, according to Klein.
“This group had that ‘it factor,’” Smart told Klein. “They played off each other. They love each other. They wanted to do something special. There were so many of them, and they really clocked on the field. That’s not something that you coach.”
Other Georgia football coaches are in Las Vegas as well, including linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann.
The Bulldogs are expected to have a record presence in the draft. Walker, Davis, Dean, Cine and Devonte Wyatt are among the Georgia players that could be selected in the first round. Wyatt originally was invited to Las Vegas but apparently is not going to attend.
Walker, a junior defensive lineman, could possibly go No. 1 to the Jacksonville Jaguars. However, he’s holding a draft party in Atlanta.
To date, the most Bulldogs selected in the first round of a draft was three in 2018 (Roquan Smith, Isaiah Wynn and Sony Michel). The NFL record is six, held by Alabama last year and Miami in 2004.
The record for most Bulldogs selected in a single draft was nine last year. That one is expected to go down in a blaze this weekend. A total of 16 UGA players have received draft grades this year, and that does not include Jermaine Johnson. The outside linebacker from Minnesota, who played 21 games at Georgia before transferring to FSU last year, also is projected to be taken in the first round.
Most of the Bulldogs will have to wait until Saturday or Sunday to hear their names called. Following is a list of where some of those players will take in the three-day event:
- P Jake Camarda – Home in Norcross
- RB James Cook – Home in Fort Lauderdale
- FS Lewis Cine – With family and friends in Dallas, Texas
- DL Jordan Davis – Las Vegas
- LB Nakobe Dean – Las Vegas
- CB Derion Kendrick – Home in Rock Hill, S.C.
- OL Jamaree Salyer – At Atlanta home of Pace Academy coach Kevin Johnson
- LB Channing Tindall – Home in Columbia, S.C.
- RB Zamir White – In Miami
- DE Travon Walker – Omni Hotel at Battery Atlanta
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