Kentucky Wildcats Football: It’s time to look to the North

Chapter III: Return on Investment

Digging a little deeper and looking at attrition of players from each state, a bigger picture is painted.  Kentucky has had 26 players from the 2009 to 2011 classes that did not qualify or left prior to exhausting their eligibility (not counting the 2012 class, which hasn’t made it to campus yet).  Of those, six were from Georgia and four were from Kentucky.  The states of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana each had three early departures or non-qualifiers, Texas had two, and Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, and California had one apiece.  It’s not surprising that recruits from Kentucky and Georgia made up the biggest chunk of departures when you consider that players from these states made up almost half of the players recruited over the past four classes either.  Year by year, UK loses just under 1/3 of the players they recruit from their big two states of Kentucky and Georgia.  The numbers get much worse in other states.  Over the three year period, 43% of the players signed from South Carolina, 60% of the players signed from Florida, 66% of the players signed from Texas, and 75% of the players signed from Louisiana have defected from the program early.  For all the time spent in Texas, Kentucky has only one Texan on the roster in backup tight end Anthony Kendrick.  For all the time spent in Louisiana, Kentucky’s roster only has one bayou-state representative in Bookie Cobbins, the backup receiver who’s transitioning from quarterback and is in academic trouble.  The point here is that the recruiting efforts in South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Louisiana have not paid off for Kentucky. Meanwhile, efforts in the home state of Kentucky, in Georgia, and in Tennessee have been much more lucrative, with the staff retaining nearly 75% of the players signed from those three states from 2009-2011.