The six recruits who will set the tone for the rest of Georgia’s 2026 class

Let’s also pay attention to the fact that Georgia did come away with a trove of defensive riches in the 2025 cycle by signing the nation’s No. 1 DT, the No. 1 edge rusher and the No. 1 LB in Elijah Griffin, Isaiah Gibson and Zayden Walker, respectively.

Georgia signed eight top 100 overall prospects in the last cycle, but four of those were on offense, with a five-star TE, a five-star WR and a projectable first-round OT in Juan Gaston, too.

That’s already going to help Curtis. The main charge for this class appears to be surrounding him with weapons to make him even more effective in the SEC.

How Georgia succeeds with these six recruits will determine the course of the 2026 class in Athens.

Five-star tight end Mark Bowman: Will the Bulldogs win a bidding war?

There are only 17 uncommitted five-star recruits left in this cycle. Bowman and in-state tight end Kaiden Prothro (Bowdon High) are the ones the Bulldogs are best positioned to sign right now. That said, the evaluation for Prothro lends itself to a role as a hybrid TE/WR, which will depend largely on how much weight the 6-foot-5-plus athlete adds to his chiseled frame over the next two or three years.

That leads us to Bowman. There’s a solid case that can be made that he and five-star linebacker Tyler Atkinson are the most likely future stars in the class. They are the two safest investments, regardless of the NIL they get.

If you want to give Curtis the supporting cast to make sure he’s an All-American, it starts with Bowman. The 6-foot-5 rising senior reclassed back to his original grade this winter, and he’s a better overall athlete and route runner than Brock Bowers was at this stage of his career.

But Bowman clearly has embraced that side of what it takes to be great, too. When Georgia lost the bidding for five-star Jackson Cantwell this month, the focus (and maybe some of those funds) shifted to whatever was necessary to sign Bowman.

The positional versatility with Prothro actually is a plus here, as well as the fact that Georgia makes sure to get a lot of its tight ends on the field every series.

If there’s one remaining recruiting battle that Georgia has to win, it would be Bowman.

Inside linebacker Tyler Atkinson: Does he leave the state for Clemson, Ohio State, Oregon or elsewhere?

For a long time, Atkinson seemed to be the most important recruit for Georgia in the 2026 class.

The bottom line was simple: Signing Atkinson represents the best chance to continue the defensive chokeholds that have been a staple of Smart’s teams.

Yet that changed while rewatching the 2025 season and understanding where the program needs to go on offense. Last season’s team was glaringly short on playmakers on offense.

That can’t happen again — especially with the clear focus of this class being to build an offense around Curtis.

That analysis also considers that Georgia signed two five-star linebackers in Justin Williams (No. 1 LB) and Chris Cole (No. 3 LB) in the 2024 cycle. Those two performed admirably in reserve roles last fall and should be stars in the SEC for the 2026 season, when Atkinson will be a freshman.

The Dogs even signed the nation’s No. 1 LB prospect last cycle in Zayden Walker. While signing the nation’s No. 1 LB seems very much like a Glenn Schumann thing to do in this class, it feels like overkill in the new age of roster building.

Atkinson and Bowman are the two most likely All-Americans in the 2026 class. Would Georgia love to sign both? Of course. Can they afford to at the expense of other needs? That’s the big question, especially since they both play positions the NFL does not value as highly as outside linebacker, offensive tackle and quarterback.

However, if the Dogs are not able to sign Atkinson or Bowman, there’s no way they will finish with the nation’s No. 1 class.

Can Georgia keep junior college priority Seven Cloud?

It makes sense here to veer from two of the top-rated targets in the nation to the lowest-rated committed player on the board for UGA.

Don’t sleep on Seven Cloud and his importance. Cloud, the nation’s No. 1 junior college recruit, initially committed to Georgia’s 2023 class.

Then life happened.

He dropped out of McEachern High School and had to get his GED. While he was out of football, he played some AAU basketball. That caught the eyes of his current college coaches at Butler Community College in Kansas.

They wanted him to come play, but he suffered a knee injury shortly after he arrived. That cost him another season out of football.

Add it all up, and his high school class will be college seniors by the time he takes the field in 2026. That means he can be called upon to fill an immediate role in the two-deep in Athens should he play at Georgia.

Georgia also is heavily in the mix with in-state four-star DL Earnest Rankins, legacy four-star DL Carter Luckie, three-star Tyson Bacon, in-state three-star Whitley Cadeau, among others.

It’s a down year for defensive linemen in this cycle, so retaining Cloud is the best bet to sign an instant impact DL. His age and maturity level will have him ready to hold up in the SEC trenches better than anyone else UGA is recruiting for 2026.

Do four-stars Malakai Lee and Ekene Ogboko become the OL centerpieces?

Hawaii offensive tackle Malakai Lee, a four-star recruit, took his official visit to UGA for G-Day. That was important. What was even bigger was two pieces of recent news.

The 6-foot-6, 325-pounder has the Dogs in his final four. He’s also going to return to Athens in June for an unofficial visit on the heels of an Alabama official visit next month.

That will be big, as the most recent projections indicate Lee will sign with Michigan. The Wolverines have been recruiting him harder for longer than any other team in his final group. They also have a strong reputation for putting their elite OLs in the NFL.

That hasn’t stopped Georgia’s Stacy Searels from racking up the frequent flyer miles here.

Searels took two trips to Hawaii this spring, trying to secure the program’s highest-profile OT target after Miami locked up Cantwell. The Bulldogs have a strong depth chart, but they don’t have a lot of elite offensive tackles. Nobody in the country does.

Georgia also is set to lose two of its top-tier tackles after the 2025 season. Junior Monroe Freeling is a strong NFL prospect. Returning junior Earnest Greene III also likely will head to the NFL after a strong fall campaign.

Lee is a prototype with 36-inch arms and an 85-plus-inch wingspan. He’s the nation’s No. 10 OT and the No. 139 overall prospect.

Ekene Ogboko, whose brother Nnamdi is a redshirt freshman DT at UGA, is the team’s other best bet for an elite OL this cycle.

While Ogboko has been told by Searels that he’s a tackle, the national services have him rated as the nation’s No. 4 interior OL and the No. 69 overall recruit. There’s some positional flexibility there, but the Dogs can ill afford to lose out on Ogboko no matter what happens with Lee.

Can the Dogs close with elite RB Jae Lamar?

Running back is a position going through a renaissance these days. The NFL game first trickles down to the highest levels of college football, and what Saquon Barkley did last season caught a lot of attention.

Remember that narrative about getting Curtis a lot of playmakers?

With the aim of surrounding Curtis with more playmakers, the Dogs have to look to the RB position — not just for what Barkley did last season or for the fact that Georgia signed only one high school running back in the previous cycle.

Smart’s best teams in Athens have featured an NFL talent at running back.

Lamar dreamed of playing for the Dogs. He’s an in-state talent at Colquitt County with 4.3 speed in the 40. That’s really moving for a 200-plus pound back.

He’s the nation’s No. 8 RB for this cycle and No. 106 overall recruit. If he joins the class, he’d make things a lot easier for Curtis in 2027 and beyond. The Bulldogs have signed one top 10 HS prospect at RB since Branson Robinson in 2022. That was Nate Frazier in 20