Texas beats Georgia again on the recruiting trail, 4-star lineman flips commitment

Johnson is the No. 69 overall prospect per the 247Sports Composite rankings.

“On my first official visit, I knew,” Johnson said as to when he first picked Georgia. “That’s when I knew. I had decided to take all the rest of my OVs to see if anyone could change my mind. I was locked in with Georgia from the start.”

With Johnson no longer in the class, Georgia has 28 commitments. The Bulldogs still have the No. 2-ranked recruiting class for the cycle.

This is the second significant recruiting loss of the day for Georgia, as the Longhorns beat out Georgia for 5-star linebacker Tyler Atkinson.

Johnson is from Miami, while Atkinson is from Georgia. While speaking to reporters at SEC Media Days, Steve Sarkisian spoke about the ability to go into SEC states to win recruitments.

“I think, when we moved into the SEC, it was a lot more natural for players from Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia to be willing to come play at the University of Texas,” Sarkisian said. “They were already kind of going to (Texas) A&M because they were in the SEC, but now that we’ve joined the conference, it’s a lot more palatable for those families and for those kids to want to come play at Texas knowing that we’re playing in the Southeastern Conference. So we’ve tried to take advantage of that.”

As for Georgia’s defensive line class, the Bulldogs still have five defensive line commitments in Seven Cloud, Carter Luckie, PJ Dean, Preston Carey and Corey Howard.

The Bulldogs are waiting to learn what four-star defensive line prospect Valdin Sone does, as he is expected to make his announcement later this week. Georgia is battling Florida and Nebraska for Sone’s commitment.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart gave some strong comments on recruiting players for Georgia on Tuesday. Those comments are very curious given the commitments of Atkinson and now Johnson to Texas.

“We sell relationships over transactions,” Smart said. “We think the relationship still wins out because the relationship allows you to push people and demand excellence, and we’re going to continue to do that at Georgia. We don’t believe in just being transactional because when you’re transactional, you cannot accomplish whatever your ultimate goal is, whatever your greatest reach is.

“Whatever the ceiling is for every player and every team we have, you don’t reach that without relationships. So we’re going to try to win 24-hour increments each and every day to make sure we still attain that.”