5-star tight end makes significant announcement that impacts Georgia football

January usually isn't a month where big recruiting news happens that impacts things on a national scale. News of that magnitude tend to happen in the transfer portal, but it is extremely rare for news to sweep the nation in high school recruiting at this point in the year.

But that is exactly what happened recently with Georgia football target Mark Bowman.

Bowman is a five-star tight end from California who was the No. 4 overall player in the country according to the 247Sports composite rankings. He also was the No. 1 tight end in the 2027 class as well as the No. 2 player from California.

Before mentioning the significant news from Bowman, he first announced his top 12 schools which included Georgia according to Hayes Fawcett with On3.

Texas, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama, Arizona State, USC, Miami (FL), Oregon, Florida, LSU and Ohio State also made the cut along with Georgia as well. A player releasing their top 12 schools is never that big of an announcement, even from a player ranked as high as Bowman is, but that isn't the big news that Bowman shared on Saturday.

Mark Bowman has reclassified to the 2026 class

Bowman made a second big announcement on Saturday, and that was that he is reclassifying to the 2026 recruiting class.

At first glance this might not seem like that big of a deal either, but it's one of the biggest announcements this year from any recruit in the country. There are always a handful of players that reclassify every year, but hardly does that happen with a top five player in the country. It also doesn't happen too often with a Georgia target either, so this news significantly impacts Kirby Smart's recruitment of Bowman.

Instead of Bowman's recruitment having two more years left to it, Georgia now only has 11 months to convince Bowman that Athens is the right place for him. And so far they appear to be doing a great job of that because Adam Gorney with Rivals shared that the Bulldogs and Texas are the leaders in Bowman's recruitment right now.

Bowman has not been ranked in the 2026 class yet, but he undoubtedly will still be a five-star player and likely in the top 10 as well. So instead of this recruitment hanging out in the background throughout this year, it is now one of the most important for Georgia. Smart and his staff will surely continue their pursuit of Bowman all year long, so stay tuned as this recruitment is going to heat up in a hurry.