It is nothing new for Georgia football fans to see the Bulldogs add a few five-star recruits every recruiting cycle. But even though everyone at Georgia is used to that, it doesn’t make it any less exciting when Georgia adds five-star olayers to their recruiting class.
Rivals just released an update to their 2026 player rankings, and two recruits currently committed to Georgia are now officially five-star players.
2 Bulldogs earn five-star status after latest update
The first Georgia commit to earn his fifth star on Monday is defensive lineman James Johnson.
🚨NEW🚨 Georgia DL commit James Johnson ranks No. 10 and 5-stars in the initial 2026 Rivals300🐶https://t.co/xS5DzGGcvS pic.twitter.com/rMKCiQWGXO
— Rivals (@Rivals) July 14, 2025
Johnson is a recent UGA commit as he announced his commitment to Georgia on June 28. At the time he was the No. 1 defensive lineman in the class, but that still wasn’t good enough to be a five-star. That however changed on Monday as Rivals officially gave him his fifth star in their rankings.
The second Georgia commit that saw a major bump in their recruiting ranking was corner Justice Fitzpatrick who was named the No. 29 player in the country on Monday.
#Georgia commit CB Justice Fitzpatrick comes in as the no. 29 player in the country and is now on track to be a 5-star. 👀
— Dawg Recruiting (@DawggRecruiting) July 14, 2025
The top 32 players are 5-stars when it’s all said and done. pic.twitter.com/Y8Lnwj9XaV
Technically Fitzpatrick is still only a four-star right now, but Rivals always names 32 five-star players at the end of every recruiting cycle. So even though Fitzpatrick technically isn’t a five-star yet, if he remains at No. 29 he will earn his fifth star by the end of the cycle.
These two developments are also part of the reason why Georgia now is the new No. 1 team in the 2026 team recruiting rankings. That title belonged to USC for multiple months now, but Rivals update on Monday moved UGA just past the Trojans for the top spot.
Obviously the hope is that Johnson and Fitzpatrick are still five-star players at the end of the cycle, and if they are then Kirby Smart and Georgia have a great chance to finish with the No. 1 recruiting class in the country in December when it matters most.