Georgia Bulldogs own top college football roster

ATHENS — Georgia’s football program has spent years stacking highly rated recruiting classes on top of one another.

The result, according to 247Sports, is the most talented roster in college football.

The Bulldogs are No. 1 in the newly released 2026 247Sports Team Talent Rating, which evaluates current college rosters based on how players were rated as high school prospects. Georgia leads the nation with 978.37 points, comfortably ahead of No. 2 Oregon at 947.40. Alabama is third at 941.30, followed by Texas at 935.15 and Ohio State at 923.22.

The numbers offer another illustration of the recruiting machine Kirby Smart has built in Athens.

Georgia has 105 rated players included in the ranking, with 12 former five-star prospects and 57 four-stars. The Bulldogs have an average player rating of 91.35, and 69 of their rated players arrived at college as either four- or five-star recruits.

Oregon, Georgia’s closest challenger, has 60 former four- and five-star prospects among its 88 rated players.

Two of Georgia’s defensive standouts sit at the very top of the recruiting scale. Defensive lineman Elijah Griffin and cornerback Ellis Robinson IV each received a perfect 100 rating from 247Sports coming out of high school.

And Georgia is No. 1 regardless of which 247Sports measurement is used.

For the first time this season, 247Sports has separated its own high school player evaluations from its traditional industry-generated Composite rankings. Georgia leads the new proprietary Team Talent Rating with 978.37 points and also ranks first in the Composite version with 1,003.67 points and a 91.97 average player rating. Texas is second in the Composite at 985.17.

The formula is designed to measure more than sheer numbers. A team’s highest-rated prospects receive the greatest weight, with the value gradually declining farther down the roster. That rewards programs for both elite talent and depth without simply giving an advantage to teams with more rated players.

There is, however, an important distinction.

The ranking measures recruiting pedigree, not current performance.

Players retain their original high school recruiting ratings even after transferring. An overlooked three-star who develops into an All-American remains valued as a three-star in the calculation, while a former five-star who hasn’t lived up to expectations retains his elite recruiting grade.

So the ranking doesn’t necessarily mean Georgia has college football’s best team entering the 2026 season.

It does demonstrate the extraordinary collection of talent Smart and his staff have assembled.

When college football rosters are judged by the recruiting credentials players brought with them to campus, nobody has more than Georgia.

The Bulldogs open the season next Saturday in Athens against Tennessee State.