On Early Signing Day for college football, the Kentucky Wildcats were able to add 20 official players to the fold, with one more still to come (according to head coach Mark Stoops). This addition of 20 players comes at a time when six players jumped into the transfer portal today.
Kentucky has been losing current players left and right; unofficially, they are up to 12 players in the portal. There are two unconfirmed ones: Barion Brown and Ja'Mori Maclin. Maclin, it was reported today that he may be changing his mind about going into the portal. There may be some negotiating happening behind the scenes.
Ten players are also graduating and have used up their final year of eligibility. That's a total subtraction of 22 players so far, which is crazy, considering 20 are officially coming in and 21 are officially going out in one day.
However, even Coach Stoops mentioned that there will be more and that "some of them will hurt." But he says he's excited about the changes: "Let's be honest—we didn't have a very good year, so I'm excited about change."
""There will be some guys go in that hurt but I'm very confident in getting the roster right. It's fluid. It's going to change. I've met all day every day and still have more to go. Met with a core group of players already and still have some more to go.""Mark Stoops
This number continues to change. While this article was being written, Dane Key announced he was jumping in the portal, and all the numbers above had to be changed. It's fluid, as Stoops said, but they are clearly losing them faster than they are gaining them. It's a sign of a disaster of a season. Sure, every program loses players in the portal, but bad programs have more of the stars jumping ship. This is the problem. Will Mark Stoops be able to get enough players in the portal? Especially if the goal is to be better, not just the same.
As of right now, it's hard to watch for Kentucky fans as so many players are leaving, and even the additions aren't helping as they are simply true freshmen. It will take a lot of big additions for Stoops and company to put forth a winning roster.