This Sentell’s Intel rep on Georgia football recruiting has the latest with Georgia’s 2026 recruiting class.
We are right on the front step of August. Somehow, the Georgia football program has the nation’s No. 1-rated recruiting class on the 247Sports Composite. (Side note: Rivals/On3 also has the Dawgs with the nation’s No. 2 class at this time.)
Some might regard that bit of news as saying that’s what always happens with Kirby Smart leading the program. Georgia’s average recruiting class ranking has been No. 2 nationally since Smart’s first group in 2016.
But the Dawgs have had to improvise this cycle.
Coaches like to use the term “sudden change” in their practice scripts where they interrupt a planned practice period with a turnover, and all of a sudden, the offense has to go on the field and win in the red zone against the No. 1 D.
That’s what it has been like chronicling the 2026 class.
When we wrote about how the 2026 recruiting cycle needed to unfold for UGA back in April, there was only one thing that happened.
Georgia scored a recommitment from the nation’s No. 1 QB prospect in Jared Curtis. The 5-star was the top-rated guy on the board for the Dawgs this cycle. The Dawgs also nailed down the commitment of 5-star TE Kaiden Prothro.
But very little else went according to plan in terms of the biggest fish.
5-star OT Jackson Cantwell? Miami scored a bidding war win.
5-star TE Mark Bowman? When USC dropped its offer, reportedly ranging from $8 to $10 million for his college career, Bowan dropped the mic on his recruiting conversation. He didn’t even take any official visits.
5-star longtime priority Tyler Atkinson? Texas scored its bidding war win there. The Horns also flipped 5-star DT James Johnson and pulled the rare who-needs-an-official-visit-trick to lasso former 5-star UGA commit Derrek Cooper, too.
Top RB target Savion Hiter? That’s still in the midst of a pricey tug-of-war between longtime suitors Michigan and Tennessee.
Elite receivers? The state of Georgia had an early pair of Top 15 overall prospects at receiver, but the Dawgs went O-for-2 there. The goal of adding a 5-star WR to this class for the second straight cycle also never really took flight.
Anchor commitments? The Dawgs couldn’t hold onto two of their longstanding early pledges. Hurricane winds also claimed WR pledge Vance Spafford. He flipped to Miami to join Cantwell. That was also where 4-star in-state ATH Jontavius Wyman wound up despite committing to UGA this time last summer.
If a random program assembled a board of just the players that Georgia either had committed to or once led for, then those “misses” would be a Top 15 class.
It was like the Dawgs were playing the classic board game “Risk” this cycle, but it was being challenged on all fronts by Miami, USC and Texas.
Somehow, as Georgia’s Kirby Smart likes to tout, the Dawgs kept chopping.
Miami’s class is ranked 10th. The Longhorns come in at seventh nationally. The USC balance sheet is ranked No. 2. The Trojans could very well overtake the Dawgs this weekend.
The Dawgs are on top right now. Somehow. It’s not a surprise Smart pulled something like this off on the trail again. Nor will it ever be.
But this was an entirely new ballgame in the transitioning NIL inducement to revenue share era.
How did they do it?
As we scan the class by positions, we see the Dawgs still scored a top-of-the-board target at QB, OT, TE, EDGE, DL, CB and S. The class did also land the nation’s No. 1 P and K prospects. Still, those vital additions do very little to boost the overall recruiting ranking.
If we’re being honest, it also had a great deal to do with some Math and some shuffling around the recruiting industry.
Georgia claimed the top spot over the last week because the formula in how the 247Sports Composite calculates the nation’s top recruiting classes had a major tweak. When On3 acquired Rivals, the metrics changed. There were now just three national recruiting services (247Sports, ESPN, Rivals) in that algorithm.
That’s how the Dawgs were able to leapfrog USC to claim the nation’s No. 1 class despite not adding a new commitment or seeing the Trojans drop one of their own.
That would be odd for any cycle except this one. But this class also contains the following outliers:
- The Dawgs racked up 15 commitments in June. That’s the most ever for one month during the Kirby Smart era.
- When the Dawgs picked up a commitment for seven straight days that month, it became the longest streak in program history.
- Georgia only has two 5-star commitments. If that stands, it will be the lowest total since 2023. That was the only other time Georgia didn’t sign at least three 5-star recruits in the Kirby Smart era.
- The Dawgs currently have 30 commitments before August. They’ve never signed more than 30 high school recruits in any cycle under Smart. They’ve only signed more than 25 high school recruits four times amongst Smart’s 10 previous recruiting classes leading up to this cycle.
- That’s more of a sign of the times than a Georgia aberration. We see that four of the nation’s top five recruiting classes all have at least 26 commits right now. USC has 31 commitments.
- The three highest-rated prospects in this class are all offensive-only recruits. That has only happened one other time (2018) since Smart began leading the program in December of 2015.
- We’ve saved the biggest “wow” for last: Georgia does not have a 5-star defensive recruit at this time. According to the 247Sports database, which has been ranking recruits since Kirby Smart arrived, that’s never happened. That’s quite a sign of the times, given Georgia’s vast defensive pedigree. The Dawgs have averaged 3.75 recruits with a 5-star ranking over their last four recruiting classes.
- For a program that’s seen 11 defensive players drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft this decade, that’s rather telling.
And yet somehow, the Dawgs are on top, at least for now.
We broke down how Georgia wound up No. 1 as the lede story on this week’s “Before the Hedges” recruiting special. Check it out below.
SENTELL’S INTEL
(Check on the recent reads on Georgia football recruiting)
