Well, the Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart must be surviving on Gatorade. Now, come on, the 49-year-old coach has become an absolute threat on the recruiting trail. Smart turned heads by landing their 14th in-state commitment of the 2026 class last week (June 26). Besides, June came off as a blessing as they marked a time when Smart landed four commitments in one week.

As per On3’s 2026 Industry Ranking football Team Recruiting Rankings, Smart’s Bulldogs sit at No.2 rank with 26 recruits locked in. They are just a few steps away from snatching Lincoln Riley’s throne, who sits at the top with 30 recruits. Right now, Smart’s attention is locked on their No. 1 uncommitted 5-Star in-state target, Tyler Atkinson. However, the young chap has got too many suitors. So, where does the Bulldogs’ chance stand?

On the July 3 episode of the UGA Football on Dawg Post podcast, the host thinks that Smart will be able to bring Atkinson home. “This guy is truly elite. One of the best players in the country, the number one player in Georgia. This guy’s held a Georgia offer since the eighth grade. I’ve reported for a long, long time that I think he ends up in Athens. And I still feel that way today. I think Georgia leads in his recruitment.” Well, the desperation for Smart to land Atkinson is real. After all, Georgia insider Graham Coffey has already given the Georgia head coach some major FOMO. He shared, “Georgia has 3 Butkus winners under Kirby Smart… This guy [Atkinson] has the tools to be the 4th.”

And Smart and Co. did not leave any stones unturned to woo Tyler Atkinson. As per the reports, on January 18, the head coach took a helicopter to visit the 5-star target. After all, he knows that the race is going to be tough for the Bulldogs. As the host shared, “There’s no timetable for a commitment. Probably end of June, early July. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Tyler Atkinson woke up and said, ‘You know what? I know where I’m going to go’ and makes a commitment sooner than that. Ohio State, Texas, Clemson, Oregon, still all in the mix. But from everything I’m hearing after these official visits, I still think that Georgia is the team to beat. And I think if he made a decision today, it would be Georgia.”

On May 15, Georgia staff even spent some quality time with Atkinson going out for dinner. The linebacker tweeted, “We had a great time at dinner!” He posed for a picture in front of the Richard L. Tucker Building. Atkinson was spotted with Smart’s defensive coordinator, Glenn Schumann, to his left and co-defensive coordinator Travaris Jerod Robinson to his right. 

Now that the coaches have made the recruit feel special, the podcast host shared, “I think it’s going to be really tough for Tyler Atkinson to look Glenn Schumann in the face and say, ‘No thanks. I’m going to go leave the state to play for another defensive coordinator, even though you’ve got three buckets of award winners on your resume, and you’re pumping them out like nobody else in college football.’ So, at the end of the day, I think Tyler Atkinson will end up at Georgia.” While Smart goes on turbo mode on the recruiting trail, he is going to face some blockades on the other fronts.

Joel Klatt’s wake-up call for Kirby Smart’s Georgia

The 2025 season is yet to pull the covers. But so what? The ‘Preseason Top 25 for 2025’ rankings are already here. Analyst George Wrighster did the honors by curating a list based on three deciding factors. The rosters, the coaching changes, and the transfer portal moves. Unfortunately, Smart’s Bulldogs could not make it to the top of the list and were held back at No.7. The reason behind their hype train hitting a sudden stop?

Wrighster addressed the elephant in the room. “Georgia, yes, their roster is excellent, but at the end of the day, the depth is not what it used to be, where you would bring in one five-star, ‘Oh, he’s tired, he gets hurt, bring in another one, bring in another NFL guy.’ Just an army of them, and now behind the NFL guy you got a young guy, and that’s the difference.” Smart’s Bulldogs are now running without their key weapons like Mykel Williams, Nazir Stackhouse, and Warren Brinson. This was later doubled down by analyst Joel Klatt.  

Klatt dished out his list of ‘10 Games that will shape the 2025 College Football Season’. That’s when Smart’s Georgia, facing off against Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama, made it to the list. After all, last season Crimson Tide crushed the Bulldogs in a 41-34 alarming feat. Klatt thus raised an alarm for Smart. “You get the implications of like, is Alabama back at their level that they were with Nick Saban. This is a huge early test for Kalen DeBoer in year two if they’re able to beat Georgia. Is Georgia slipping back to them? They beat him last year. If they beat him again this year, it’s like, ‘Hey, well, wait, what’s going on with Kirby and Georgia? They lost to Alabama last year in DeBoer’s first year. They lost to Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame in the college football playoff. Is Georgia still Georgia? I think they need to win this game to be considered.”

The game holds a lot of importance for the Bulldogs’ squad. In this game, Kirby Smart’s boys will be looking for their first regular-season win over the Crimson Tide since 2007. The head coach has been crushing it on the recruiting trail. But can he finally bulldoze Bama too?