More than 4,400 former Georgia high school football players made college-football rosters this season, according to the annual work of Steve Slay, a researcher for the Georgia High School Football Historians Association.
The Georgia school with the most alumni on college rosters was Grayson with 64. Others with more than 40 were McEachern (53), Buford (49), Stockbridge (46), Mill Creek (45), Norcross (45), Westlake (43) and Lee County (40).
Three former Georgia high school players were consensus first-team All-Americans. They were Auburn defensive lineman Derrick Brown of Lanier, Georgia offensive lineman Andrew Thomas of Pace Academy and Florida Atlantic tight end Harrison Bryant of John Milledge Academy.
Other Georgia players that got some All-America recognition include Georgia place-kicker Rodrigo Blankenship of Sprayberry, Minnesota wide receiver Rashod Bateman of Tift County, Alabama defensive back Xavier McKinney of Roswell and Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields of Harrison.
There are 25 Georgia players on rosters of LSU and Clemson, the teams that will play in Monday night’s national championship game in New Orleans.
For Clemson, quarterback Trevor Lawrence (Cartersville), right tackle Tremayne Anchrum (McEachern), cornerback A.J. Terrell (Westlake) and middle linebacker James Skalski (Northtage) are expected to start. LSU fullback Tory Carter (Lee County) also is a possible starter.
The 4,488 identified Georgia players are spread throughout all levels of the college game from major Division I programs to junior college teams.
About 25 percent (1,130 of 4,488) play for FBS teams with 613 in Power Five Conferences such as the SEC and ACC and 517 playing for in mid-major programs such as Georgia State and Georgia Southern.
The breakdown for other divisions is 875 in FCS, 1,023 in Division II, 598 in Division III, 535 in NAIA and 327 in JUCO.
About one-third of Georgia’s college players (1,441 of the 4,488) remained in state. Reinhardt, Shorter, LaGrange and West Georgia each have more than 100 Georgia players on their rosters. Georgia has 88; Georgia Tech has 73. Georgia Southern (93) and Georgia State (64) also rely heavily on in-state talent. There are 267 Georgia players on the state’s historically black schools such as Morehouse, Clark-Atlanta and Fort Valley State.
It’s not known how Georgia ranked with other states because the research has not been done completely on a national and annual basis, but past research on college signees and players at the Division I level consistently put Georgia in the top four, typically behind only California, Florida and Texas, all more populous states.
To see a list of college players from every Georgia school, find them by GHSA classification via these links:
Class AAAAAAA (1,096)
Class AAAAAA (890)
Class AAAAA (696)
Class AAAA (542)
Class AAA (420)
Class AA (350)
Class A (373)
Non-GHSA (121)
About the Author
