Early Signing Period: Looking at Kentucky Football’s newest additions

Mark Stoops, Vince “Big Dog” Marrow, and Kentucky may have just sealed the deal on their best recruiting class yet, possibly even in the history of Kentucky Football. But, what does this all mean? What should we expect? Who do we look for?

The marriage between Coach Stoops and the Commonwealth grows snugger by the day. Today is no exception. Kentucky capped off National Signing Day 2020 – better known as NSD20 – with the best recruiting class the Stoops era, if not Kentucky football history, has ever seen.

The 2020 Class, 21 signees in total, is comprised of Kentucky’s highest-ranked recruit, a litany of four-star talent, and even an SEC-transfer. All of this puts Kentucky’s class at 20th in the nation according to Rivals.com, the highest mark by a Kentucky team since their rankings began.

Slowly but surely, Kentucky is bridging the gap into uncharted territory – elite recruiting success. Not so long ago, Kentucky was playing at a talent deficit. The Wildcats could not recruit with their commonwealth neighbors, let alone the SEC. Today, Kentucky has surpassed the Cardinals, as well as SEC opponents in Vandy, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi State.

Mark Stoops has always done a good job recruiting. It seemed that every year under Stoops a new recruiting record was broken. While true, this year’s ascent into the upper echelon of recruiting success stands far and away his greatest accomplishment. Stoops and his staff were able to lure a five-star (yes, you read that right) into Lexington. NSD20 recruits chose Kentucky over schools like Ohio State, LSU, Georgia, Alabama, and Michigan, just to name a few.

So, where do we go from here, and what does this all mean?

To begin, The offensive and defensive fronts were the main points of emphasis for the Cats’ recruiting class. After losing a generational talent in Josh Allen in 2018, and at the conclusion of this season, Calvin Taylor Jr., who finished second in the SEC in sacks during the regular season, Coach Stoops identified a niche to fill.

Furthermore, throughout the years the offensive line has proved to be the strongest piece of Kentucky’s identity, accounting for several 1,000+ yard rushing performances (including this year’s fanatics by Lynn Bowden). So, very clearly linemen were Priority 1 on the agenda.

Above all else, the need to fill these roles is a testament to Coach Stoops developing talent even better than he recruits it. Just look at what Josh Allen said about his former coach:

https://twitter.com/JoshAllen41_/status/1207495122935537664

Following the late commitment of Octavious Oxendine (watch Coach Stoops finding out here), the four-star recruit who picked Kentucky over Tennessee, increased the lineman tally to ten. Of these ten commits, seven are four-star recruits or higher. While stars often mislead, just ask Josh Allen or Bud Dupree or Randall Cobb, they are a great indicator for how well a team can recruit. And if this year’s indicator tells us anything, it’s that Coach Stoops is not messing around.

Only one team in the country had more four or five-star linemen commits: Clemson (9). Pretty good company, huh? That puts Kentucky at #2 in the country at offensive/defensive lineman commits.

It doesn’t stop here. Coincidentally, one of these linemen is the greatest recruit to ever commit to the University of Kentucky football program. That person (or should I say behemoth) is Justin Rogers– a five-star DT from Oak Park, MI, who picked the Cats over Alabama, Georgia, and Tennesse.

Five-stars just don’t come to Kentucky. That is, until now.

The ability to recruit such sought after talent enables the staff to develop incomers into elite players. Just this year, Kentucky was able to redshirt EVERY freshman on the roster. With progress like this, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Blue paint the stands of Mercedes Benz Arena in Atlanta in just a few years.

The efforts of Coach Stoops, Marrow, Gran, Hinshaw and all down the line have proven to be fruitful. Keep in mind Cats fans, it was only six short years ago that we had back-to-back 2-10 seasons.

Year in, year out these coaches have come to play. Yes, their recruiting success does not pardon some of their greatest sins (*cough Florida 2017), but it does reveal progress. Kentucky fans: we are made of 70% scar tissue. We endure pain like no other fans in the country. So it is not surprising that many of you will take the NSD20 success with a grain of salt. But, as a word of caution – this success is not commonplace in the SEC, let alone the rest of the country.

We are the University of Kentucky, and we are a football school.