It's been a year since the Kentucky Wildcats and head coach Mark Stoops jumped in the portal for the last crop of talent. 2024 was a bad season for the Wildcats, which can be attributed to the poor additions Kentucky made in the portal. Stoops and his staff added 12 players in the transfer portal for the 2024 season, and only five of them became contributors. Seven were completely non-factors for the Wildcats. That's not good. You can read more about that here.
"Kentucky had five total contributors come in. Of those five players, only two were graded better than a 69.5. None were 79.5+, which lists those that are better than a quality starter. This is not a good track record from the portal last season. To make matters worse, there were 7 total transfers that were "non-factors.""WildcatBlueNation.com
Let's go player by player and give each a grade for their 2024 season with "boom" or "bust". This will be brutal, so only read on and click through if you can handle it. We won't be looking at potential or even if they will do well at a new location or next season. This is simply based on the 2024 season.
Aidan Laros - Punter
It might be fitting to start with one of the best players from the 2024 class, one of the guys who got plenty of opportunities to highlight his skills. It's never a good sign for a football program when you have to shout out the punter as one of the best players, but that is what happened with Kentucky and Laros. He had 32 punts this year with a 45.4-yard average and a long of 66.
This is actually down from his previous stop at UT Martin, where he averaged 52 points for a 47.5-yard average and had a long of 71. However, he was helpful this year in crucial moments and was a good addition to the 2024 class.