Georgia Draft Profile: Christopher Smith
It’s officially draft week in the NFL. Come Thursday, players from all across the College Football landscape will start to find their new homes. Last year that happened in record breaking fashion for the Georgia Bulldogs with 15 players picked. It won’t be quite that many this year, but Kirby Smart’s crew still should be well represented in the selections taking place over the course of three days in Kansas City.
With double-digit Georgia players expected to be picked, DawgsHQ prepares you by taking a look back on their respective collegiate careers with our Georgia Draft Profile series. Back on the defensive side of the ball, here’s Christopher Smith.
Christopher Smith
Height: 5-foot-11
Weight: 192 pounds
Arms / Hands: 31 1/8 inches / 9 5/8 inches
High School / Hometown: Hapeville Charter / Atlanta, Ga.
On3 Industry Ranking (2018): No. 356 overall, No. 27 safety, No. 37 in state of Georgia
Christopher Smith is in rarefied Georgia air. He’s one of just 13 players in program history to be named an unanimous All-American, doing so this past season. However, that certainly wasn’t the expectation when he stepped foot on campus. He made the move from cornerback to safety, using that versatility to his advantage even after the fact, and became one of the top defensive backs in the country because of it.
A finalist for the 2022 Bronko Nagurski Award, Smith started all 15 games at safety for Georgia. He was named to both the AP and Coaches’ All-SEC First-Team finishing fourth among all Bulldogs in tackles with 61 stops. Smith also had a team-high three interceptions, recorded five tackles for loss, five pass breakups and one fumble recovery.
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Not only did Smith make plays, but he had a way of doing so on the biggest stage that was impressive. In Georgia’s season-opener against Clemson in 2021, Smith scored the game’s only touchdown with a pick-six. He had another interception in the National Championship Game that year before following that up with an impressive season-opener once again in 2022, picking off Oregon quarterback Bo Nix. Smith had a career-high eight tackles in Georgia’s SEC Championship Game win over LSU to go along with a 96-yard touchdown return on a blocked field goal that will certainly be remembered in Athens for quite some time.
Projections for Smith are all over the board. Some folks consider him to be one of the best safeties in the draft class as demonstrated by his performances on the college level. Others still see some of the traits that had him not all too highly rated coming out of high school. His name being called at the end of night two wouldn’t be too surprising, but more than likely it’ll happen at some point on the third day of the draft.
