Kentucky Wildcats Football: Sizing up the needs in the 2013 recruiting class

Offensive Line

The team will only lose seniors Larry Warford, Matt Smith, and Trevino Woods to graduation this year and adding five offensive linemen in this past signing class lessens the need for replacements slightly.  In addition to the five incoming recruits, only six scholarship linemen return and that’s assuming Sam Simpson will be part of the team next year (which is looking more and more unlikely by the week).  The roster will need yet another infusion of linemen in the 2013 class and adding three big guys should be looked at as the absolute minimum and four would be much more ideal.

Needs: 4

Defensive Line

This is where things start to get a little confusing.  Whether defensive coordinator Rick Minter intends on continuing to utilize the hybrid defensive scheme he employed last season or transition over to a traditional 3-4 scheme will greatly affect the team’s needs on defense.  For simplicity’s sake, I’ll assume that the team will use three down linemen and the hybrid defensive end/linebacker will be recruited as a linebacker.  In this scenario, the team will need to replace graduating seniors Collins Ukwu and Taylor Wyndham in addition to preparing for the possible early departures of Donte Rumph and/or Mister Cobble. The additions of Langston Newton, Patrick Graffree, and Thomas Chapman in the 2012 class will put the roster at 10 defensive linemen in 2013.  While one might say that Kentucky could pass on adding any defensive linemen in this recruiting class, having too many quality big guys is never a bad thing, so UK should probably add at least two more.

Needs: 2