Through three rounds of the 2023 NFL Draft, 102 former college football players have been selected. Eight of them are former Alabama football players.
In Thursday night’s first round, the SEC and the Big Ten led all conferences with each having nine players selected. Every player chosen in the first round came from a Power Five program. Among the Power Fives, the Big 12 was next with six players selected. The ACC had four and the Pac-12 had three.
The three top programs in the first round were Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State, each with three players selected. The Alabama Crimson Tide’s three were by far the most impressive.
Alabama Football 2023 NFL Draft First Round
- No. 1 – Bryce Young – Carolina Panthers
- No. 3 – Will Anderson Jr. – Houston Texans
- No. 12 – Jahmyr Gibbs – Detroit Lions
Ohio State Buckeyes First Round
- No. 2 – CJ Stroud – Houston Texans
- No. 7 – Paris Johnson Jr. – Arizona Cardinals
- No. 20 – Jaxson Smith-Njigba – Seattle Seahawks
Georgia Bulldogs First Round
- No. 9 – Jalen Carter – Philadelphia Eagles
- No. 14 – Broderick Jones – Pittsburgh Steelers
- No. 30 – Nolan Smith – Philadelphia Eagles
The distribution of players selected through the first three rounds of the 2023 NFL Draft shows even more dominance by the Alabama Crimson Tide and the SEC. Compared to Alabama’s eight players selected, Tennessee has five; Georgia, Michigan and Ohio State have four each; Clemson has three; Notre Dame has two.
Number of SEC Players drafted by school
- Alabama Crimson Tide – 8
- Tennessee Vols – 5
- Georgia Bulldogs – 4
- Florida Gators – 3
- Arkansas Razorbacks, Auburn Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks – 2 each
- Kentucky Wildcats, LSU Bengal Tigers, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Ole Miss Rebels and Texas A&M Aggies – 1 each
- The Missouri Tigers and the Vanderbilt Commodores had no players drafted in the first three rounds
Three-Round Player Total by Power Five Conference
- Southeastern Conference – 31 players drafted
- Big Ten Conference – 24 players drafted
- Big 12 Conference – 13 players drafted
- Atlantic Coast Conference – 12 players drafted
- Pac-12 Conference – 10 players drafted
- 90 of the 102 players drafted were from the Power Five conferences
Other numbers also matter and to the individual players, they matter more. Take a look at the projected contract dollars for Alabama’s three first-round players. The data is provided by Spotrac.
- Bryce Young – Four years, $37.95M, fully guaranteed including a $24.6M signing bonus.
- Will Anderson Jr. – Four years, $35.2M, fully guaranteed including a $22.6M signing bonus
- Jahmyr Gibbs – Four years, $17.8M including a $9.6M signing bonus
An excellent source for more NFL Draft details is this Tracker provided by CBS Sports.
Along with the celebrating by Alabama football fans, comes a hard question. How could a Crimson Tide team with so much talent fail to make the Playoffs? The answer most often given includes the names of two former Alabama football assistants.