More on Murray and Geathers

One of the fringe benefits of being a hotshot blogger is having "experts" like Mel Kiper read your blog. That way he can piggy-back on what I set up for him. So after reading yesterday's post on potential early UGA departures the ESPN draft analyst was kind enough to call in and teleconference with the media. If you can get past his unsolicited and off base assessment of the waning SECCG moments, its hard to argue with his logic. On Murray:

"I think he'd be in the second and third round discussion. If he wants to be a first-round pick, if he wants to improve your stock you go back. It really depends on where he is, in terms of his career, whether he just wants to move on and go to the NFL and take his chances."

Kiper goes into pretty good depth on Murray. Worth the read. But ultimately, like we said yesterday, it will come down to a personal choice. And given his career thus far and any obligations he may feel for his family, it will be easy to support whatever decision he eventually makes.

And there's also some analysis by Kiper on the other underclassmen making a decision. Here's what he said about Kwame:

- Junior nose tackle Kwame Geathers projects to the second or third round if he decides to leave, according to Kiper.

"Geathers is a junior who has a decision to make. He's huge, he's a space-eater. He frees up the linebacker, and that obviously helped out Ogletree at inside linebacker, having Jenkins, having Geathers," Kiper said. "You pop (Geathers) in the second round as a possibility.

After thinking about it some more yesterday, I decided to check to see where Geathers might possibly fall in the defensive tackle projections for April's draft...should he decide to leave. Here's some of the names other than Jenkins: Star Lotulelei (Utah), Johnathan Hankins (OSU), Sheldon Richardson (Missouri), Jesse Williams (Bama), Sharrif Floyd (Florida), Kawann Short (Purdue), Sylvester Williams (UNC), Akeem Spence (Illinois), Daniel McCullers (Tennessee). Of that group I would think Geathers would fall towards the bottom (still 2-3 round) prior to combine workouts and pro days. Given how hard Kwame has worked and how competitive he is based on his response to Jenkins moving to Athens, I really think he has the potential to move up to the middle of that pack, say even with Floyd. That would almost assure him of an early to mid second round selection at worst.

For a guy who's 22 and is playing a position that doesn't have a whole lot of longevity in the NFL anyway, that's a pretty good spot I think. And by the way, in terms of size Geathers dwarfs all of those guys with the exception of his teammate and McCullers, who's really not much more than a miniature dumpster. He'll impress a lot of scouts just by walking onto the field.

Anyway, we'll talk about it plenty more in the coming weeks, but for now I'll stick with my previous assessments: Jarvis and Tree are most definitely done in Athens, Murray may stay and Geathers probably goes.