Austin Kendall the big prize in Stoop brothers recruiting rivalry?

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It’s tough being the youngest brother in your family. Especially when you have to compete with successful older siblings. It must be worse when you are in the same field. At what point do you think Kentucky Wildcats football coach Mark Stoops gets tired of his brothers Bob and Ron kicking the tires on half of the prospects his staff offers. Clearly all is fair in recruiting and Bob has his own job to think about, especially with the natives growing restless in Oklahoma, but it sometimes seems spiteful doesn’t it? Mark Stoops has had quite a recruiting rivalry so far with his brothers but that may heat up with Austin Kendall. This has been a building rivalry for a while.

Kendall Randolph had an Oklahoma offer and visited the Sooners before ultimately signing with Kentucky. Jordan Jones is another four-star defender that held a Sooner offer but ended up in Lexington. But the news hasn’t all been good, earlier this year Kentucky looked poised to sign Texas wide receiver AD Miller. Miller even announced his decommitment from Illinois directly following a visit from the Kentucky staff and took his official visit during the same weekend as all of the UK commits. But right before Signing Day here comes Oklahoma with an offer and an official visit. Miller committed shortly thereafter.

Now comes news that near five-star quarterback Austin Kendall is visiting Norman today. Kendall is the recent Tennessee defection who currently has Kentucky atop his destination list. Immediately fans started to concede the possibility of losing Kendall to the eldest Stoops and Lincoln Riley. It’s certainly something to be concerned about, but we will all find out more after the visit. It would be very unexpected for him to commit on his visit.

Many have felt that choosing Kentucky over the Vols would be a “business” decision for Kendall, considering the rosters at each school. They aren’t convinced that Austin Kendall really wants to go to UK, but wants the easiest path to a starting gig. That may be true, UT signing three quarterbacks in 2015 certainly seemed to change his tune. If that is indeed the case, then it would make sense to believe that Kentucky would still be the choice over Oklahoma. The Sooners have more QB depth than the Wildcats do.

Austin Kendall would be a huge addition to Kentucky’s class, a true game changer, where at OU he would simply be another talented player. Neither is a necessarily a reason to go or not to go to either school but it simply illustrates how this little sibling rivalry affects each program. Certainly Kentucky’s history indicates that they have no business competing with OU but by now fans should have learned to not doubt these coaches and what this program can do. What these fans can do. Last year’s string of decommits aside, Kentucky still has momentum and a Kendall commit would create a full snowball effect.

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