Kirby Smart meets Ohio State on the recruiting trail once again for a 5-star DL

Kirby Smart continues to find himself up against Ohio State with many of his top recruiting targets. It also turns out that these recruits Georgia and OSU are battling for are the best recruits in the country this year as well.

The latest recruit to hint that the Bulldogs and Buckeyes are his top two schools is Marcus Fakatou who is a five-star defensive lineman in the 2027 class. Fakatou just so happened to be in Athens on a visit this past weekend, and according to On3's Jeremy Johnson that visit may have changed everything.

Weekend visit springs Georgia to the top of Marcus Fakatou's recruitment

Fakatou was in Athens this past weekend. Before this trip he wasn't a very known recruit for Georgia fans. That however has quickly changed.

Fakatou hasn't come out and directly said that Georgia is one of his top schools. He also hasn't confirmed that Ohio State is either. But the update from Johnson above frames this recruitment as being down to the Bulldogs and Buckeyes right now.

Fakatou is a five-star defensive lineman according to the 247Sports composite rankings. That makes his recruitment extremely important for Georgia to win, but that importance ramps up even more because they are battling Ohio State.

As mentioned, Georgia and OSU are fighting for a lot of top recruits right now. If Georgia is able to win one of these recruitments soon that could trigger even more of these showdowns to go Georgia's way as well. The same however could be said for Ohio State as well.

Also, no one needs to be told how dominant both of these programs are. Even though they are in different conferences it is important to win as many of these battles as possible to assert their dominance on a national scale.

Only time will tell with this recruitment, but for now this is yet another player that both Georgia and Ohio State are aggressively pursuing together.