John Calipari has offered Malik Newman for 2015 Kentucky Wildcats Basketball class

We all know what Yahtzee! means at this point, but how did it get started? It appears that the credit for the Yahtzee! phenom can be traced to UK WR coach Tommy Mainord.

"“I just wanted to do something different. … There wasn’t much prethought put into it other than when someone rolls a Yahtzee they get pretty excited and yell it. That’s kind of how it started.” Like the dice game, UK’s recruiting has been on a roll under new head coach Mark Stoops, and “Yahtzee” has snowballed into a Big Blue buzz word. It’s used by the entire staff to celebrate commitments and to broaden the coaches’ reach with fans on social media. A Twitter search for “Yahtzee” or “#Yahtzee” returns countless UK-related tweets from fans, players and media. Mainord laughed and said he’s been “very, very surprised” by how the word has blown up. “I thought it was just a deal where I’m throwing out some excitement, and next thing you know, everybody is doing it with me,” he said. “A lot of that credit goes to the fan base. We’ve got the greatest fan base in the country on the Internet, via Twitter, Facebook. It’s incredible. I’ve been at other universities. … They just want to be a part of this, and that’s their way of doing it.” Stoops and most of the staff now tweet “Yahtzee” after every commitment. Even athletic director Mitch Barnhart has done it."

Oct 6, 2012; Lexington, KY, USA; Kentucky Wildcats quarterback Patrick Towles (14) prepares to hand the ball off during the game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Commonwealth Stadium. Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

The folks over at ESPN have done something called a “Future SEC Power Rankings” in which they look at the current players, depth, coaching and recruiting. All they say that this is a look at the “next few years”, whatever that means. And I guess it says something that despite never coaching a game, that Kentucky is not last. They are ranked 13th in the SEC, ahead of Missouri.

"13. Kentucky: Mark Stoops has one of the country’s best recruiting classes, which bodes well for the future of this program. But can this staff develop this talent once it arrives? That’s yet to be seen, as Stoops hasn’t even coached a game at his new school. The good news is that the Wildcats will be built on a more defensive foundation. We know how important that is, but Kentucky is behind most of its conference counterparts when it comes to immediate talent as a whole."

It is kind of interesting that Vanderbilt is ranked 9th, ahead of Tennessee and Texas A&M is 4th. But it’s mid-June, so even ESPN is driving themselves crazy to come up with story ideas. It’s cute to try to look at the future of the SEC and it takes no genius to predict Alabama and LSU as 1-2, but the rest of these rankings is a tenuous as a game of Jenga. If and when James Franklin ever leaves Nashville, expect the big Vandy love-fest to promptly end from the worldwide leader.