Georgia football continues to push forward in their pursuit of the best recruits across the country in the 2026 recruiting class. Two of the top players that Georgia is after are linebacker Tyler Atkinson and running back Derrek Cooper.
Both recruits are expected to announce their commitments in July, but until that happens Georgia fans are remaining hopeful that both will end up committing to UGA. However, the excitement surrounding the recruitments for both players took a major blow on Monday as both recruits plummeted in Rivals updated recruiting rankings.
Georgia’s top targets free fall in latest recruiting rankings
Atkinson is considered not just one of the best linebackers in the country, but one of the best overall recruits in the 2026 class. Rivals however no longer agrees with that as Atkinson no longer is ranked inside the top 25 of their rankings. Cooper on the other hand dropped even more in Rivals’ recruiting rankings as he is now the No. 123 player in the country.
To add some context to these rankings, 247Sports has Atkinson as their No. 20 player while Cooper is their No. 39 overall recruit in the country.
It’s unclear why both of these players dropped significantly, but at the end of the day it shouldn’t actually matter to Georgia fans. This update isn’t going to slow Kirby Smart down in his pursuit of both recruits, so as long as that is the case Georgia fans shouldn’t really care where they are ranked.
There was one pretty significant positive that came from Rivals update on Monday, and that is that Georgia now has the No. 1 recruiting class in the country. USC held that title for most of the year to this point, but it’s the Bulldogs who have officially taken that title away from them.
Georgia’s goal now is to keep that No. 1 ranking for the rest of the recruiting cycle, and earning a commitment from Atkinson and Cooper will greatly help out with that even after their drop in the rankings.