Kentucky Wildcats Football: The Sky is NOT Falling

It seems like there are only two things on Kentucky Wildcats fans minds these days and both pertain to football.

They are afraid of losing Vince Marrow to Michigan and Damien Harris to Alabama or Ohio State. Both have been considered to be key cogs in the future of the Wildcat football program for a while. Now the coaching carousel has put things in doubt.

Neal Brown’s departure to coach Troy may not be the deciding factor for Harris, but his ability to recruit in the state of Kentucky cannot be denied. He was very adept at selling the home state hero angle to guys like Matt Elam and Ryan Timmons. His recruiting prowess wasn’t just limited to players on offense. Harris liked Brown but is much closer with running backs coach Chad Scott and Mark Stoops. He may choose Alabama next week, and if he does, who could blame him? The Tide are an NFL factory and he will have the best opportunity to win a championship there. But the truth is that next level talent will shine anywhere. We as fans need to stop grasping at straws because he celebrated a friend committing to Bama and bought some crimson underwear from Costco two months ago.

Marrow has interviewed with and reportedly been offered a job by Jim Harbaugh. He is supposed to be weighing the offer as I read this and will likely meet with Mitch Barnhart and Mark Stoops before Monday. The general feeling is that Kentucky is going to have to open up the checkbook to keep him. As much as we want to believe that Marrow’s friendship with Stoops is an unbreakable bond, he surely has career aspirations of his own. One would think that must be why this move is even under consideration. Because he won’t be the ace at Michigan, he won’t be the big fish assistant coach. So coaching under Harbaugh at a prestigious university must be the draw because, honestly, Michigan isn’t going to offer him much more than he already makes.

But people need to settle down. If Kentucky starts next season without both Vince Marrow and Damien Harris it will be in a worse position than it would be if they were in Lexington. But the beat will go on. All of this talk about UK “falling apart” because of this needs to end right now. Kentucky will be just fine without either or both of them. It’s not a sign of the end. Think about it, two years ago nobody would have given UK a chance of signing Harris whatsoever. Losing him to one of the top programs in the country doesn’t mean Kentucky can’t recruit anymore.

As far as Marrow is concerned, what did you think was going to happen? A lower-tier SEC school hires a staff of hotshot recruiters who start making waves against the big boys of college football and you expect to hold onto them all? It being Marrow is somewhat surprising because of his lifelong friendship with Mark Stoops but Ricky Bobby had to let Cal win eventually didn’t he? Big programs are going to come after Kentucky’s coaches so long as they keep recruiting well. Honestly, I expected Derrick Ansley to be the guy interviewing elsewhere.

But Kentucky will be fine without Vince Marrow if he so chooses to take another job. Mark Stoops has shown that he knows plenty of coaches and can identify recruiters. I have every confidence that he can find a suitable replacement if need be. It’s unlikely that he can find someone who replaces Marrow on the recruiting trail completely, but Shannon Dawson has some experience recruiting Ohio and even pulled 4* WR Shelton Gibson away from UK when Stoops first arrived. So it’s not like they have no contacts or would give up on Ohio. And it wouldn’t be likely that they would go head to head with Michigan for many recruits in the Buckeye state. And as far as the coaching acumen, it’s not like Kentucky’s tight ends have exactly set the world on fire in Marrow’s two years in Lexington.

The truth is that I want both to be a part of this program for as long as they can, but at the end of the day it’s not about any one coach or any one player. Football is about a team, a community, working and striving together for a goal. Mark Stoops has created the right culture to get Kentucky on the winning path and winning games solves all. This panic session helps nothing and these two men’s decisions are out of our control. Have faith.