I read this on KSR and thought that was pretty telling regarding our recruiting or lack there of. Not sure if any of those guys went to the NFL early but I can’t think of any.
19 offensive players signed in the 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes and Eli Cox is the only starter.
- Thread starter PensacolaBlue
- Start date
KSR designs their headlines to get clicks. Clicks attract advertising. Advertising yields revenue. Revenue is their objective. The statement "Eli Cox is the only starter" is false. Someone forgot about JJ Weaver, Jalen Geiger, Brandin Echols, D',Eryk Jackson, Jeremy Flax, and several others. Never believe anything you read on KSR without cross-checking for verification.
We live in the transfer age. But in any age, most hs players don't become significant college players. This is not only true at UK. You can selectively pick out relatively ineffective classes at any school. Here are significant contributing players from our 2019 and 2020 classes-
2019
Eli Cox
Taj Dodson
Brandin Echols
Jalen Geiger
Quandre Mosely
JJ Weaver
(Also inbound transfer Kelvin Joseph)
2020
Izayah Cummings
Jeremy Flax
Josiah Hayes
D'Eryk Jackson
Jutahn McClain
Octavious Oxendine
Andruw Phillips
Justin Rogers
TreVonn Rybka
Carrington Valentine
I decided to look at the classes:
2019
Amani Gilmore - Grambling State
Nik Ognenovic - Akron
Demarcus Harris - Marshall
Travis Tisdale - Valdosta State
Tae Tae Crumes - unsure
Jake Pope - Illinois State
Nik Scalzo - Samford
Eli Cox - Kentucky starter
2020
Mike Drennan - Toledo
RJ Adams - JUCO
Jeremy Flax - Kentucky starter
Deondre Buford - UC
Khalil Branham - unknown
Earnest Sanders - Saginaw Valley
Izayah Cummings - Kentucky rotation player
Josh Jones - unknown
Jutahn McLain - Kentucky rotation player
Beau Allen - Georgia Southern
John Young - Miami (OH)
Torrance Davis - unknown
I’m unsure how this compares to other schools on one side of the ball for recruiting classes.
2019
Amani Gilmore - Grambling State
Nik Ognenovic - Akron
Demarcus Harris - Marshall
Travis Tisdale - Valdosta State
Tae Tae Crumes - unsure
Jake Pope - Illinois State
Nik Scalzo - Samford
Eli Cox - Kentucky starter
2020
Mike Drennan - Toledo
RJ Adams - JUCO
Jeremy Flax - Kentucky starter
Deondre Buford - UC
Khalil Branham - unknown
Earnest Sanders - Saginaw Valley
Izayah Cummings - Kentucky rotation player
Josh Jones - unknown
Jutahn McLain - Kentucky rotation player
Beau Allen - Georgia Southern
John Young - Miami (OH)
Torrance Davis - unknown
I’m unsure how this compares to other schools on one side of the ball for recruiting classes.
The subject does say “offensive” players and you named mostly defensive. Flax would be the exception.
Everyone loses players, they pan out and leave early for NFL, decide college football isn't for them, or transfer. UGA has lost multiple starters along with multiple players passed by younger guys. With the transfer rules being what they are and teams going afterć⁰
Regardless, the KSR headline is misleading and designed to get clicks. All schools have some recruiting classes that are more contributory than others, and all schools gain and lose transfers.
The KSR headline for the article was “What went wrong with Kentucky football for 2023”. I don’t think that was misleading and designed for clicks.
I totally get that. All the guys who stayed get playing time. Very few of the guys who left got playing time.
I think Marrow may be slightly over paid. The recruiting has not panned out over the last 4 years. We are lacking on the starting OLine, QB, DBs and have zero depth at any of those positions.
Our “superstar” WRs have been a huge disappointment as well.
Our “superstar” WRs have been a huge disappointment as well.
Of course it is misleading. But you bought it because you believe it.
Our football program went 10-3 with major bowl victories over important B10 opponents in 2018 and 2021. It is called competition for a reason. This year isn't as good as 2018 or 2021, primarily because we need new OL and WR coaches. If you look at other football programs, you are going to find that none of them have the same record every year, and all of them have highs and lows. For UK football, there were lows in 2000, 2001, 2004, 2012, and 2013. The first grouping of bad seasons was a reminder why we don't want to be on NCAA probation. The second grouping was a reminder that UK had not built on Rich Brooks and SEC football was passing UK by. Mark Stoops stopped the damage and rebuilt our roster. None of us is perfect and Stoops never claimed to be. But those already looking for manufactured reasons to give up on Stoops are sad cases.
I believed we would beat SCar and UL, but I qualified the prediction. I said "as long as we don't screw it up with dumb penalties and turnovers". I believed our football team would learn and continue to develop. The loss to SCar says otherwise, but the problem continues to be the OL and the receivers. Those two position coaches need to be fired and replaced by proven upgrades. That will help us with recruiting, although recruiting hasn't actually suffered yet with the exception of OT. We may yet get some decommits, IDK.
In the meantime, UL has momentum and will play at home on Saturday. So they ought to win. If they don't, then a lot of people here who gauge our success by whether we beat UL will be eating crow and cracking little brother jokes. If if they do, then UK will be 6-6, which sure isn't what I expected this year but is far better than 2-11. Some of our fans sound so entitled. This foo,ball program has come a very long way since 2013. But this is s year of regression, and every serious, knowledgeable fan understands it is about our OL and receivers. The SEC is a very competitive conference and you can't afford to allow OL play to slip. Stoops didn't intend for Coach Schlarman to get a malignancy. He didn't intend for Wolford and Yenser not to work out, but that is what happened. Now he has to fix the problem and plug the leak. And every UK football fan with a healthy perspective will hope this works out better, because Stoops worked his ass off and built up our program from the deep hole Joker left it in. Some people have very short memories.
Our WRs have never been "superstars", and I have never seen anyone imply they were.
They have athletic tools that a better WR coach than Woodward could develop and I still hope it happens for them at UK.
Both our CBs from 2022 are gone now. Andruw Phillips has been banged up most of this year. Hairston and Hardaway are inexperienced sophomores. Robinson is a transfer from Livingstone College and would be playing nickel if we had enough CBs. Avery Stuart is redshirting. The only seniors in our secondary are Geiger and Childress. SEC football is tough on inexperienced DBs. It is what it is.
Marrow is being paid enough to keep him from bolting for a B10 job. We better hope he stays.
Some classes just don't have the contributers other classes do. You don't want classes like that back to back like it appears UK had, but with the transfer rules and portal, that shouldn't be the issue it was only a couple years ago.
Speaking of Big10 jobs, ATM fans seem to think Day is their next coach. At the very best its a lateral job and beating Texas will be as big a deal as beating Mich is for OSU. Cant see why he would be interested in that, but that is on the ATM boards.
That about everybody goes thru ups and downs is true, look no further than Ole Miss. Ole Miss lost 5 of their last 6 last year....now they're on the cusp of a 10 win season. Am I predicting a 10 win season for UK next year? Of course not. What I am saying is that I didn't see people going all apey, screaming for Kiffin's hide after their fiasco. Kiffin was given a chance to fix what was broken and did. Stoops deserves the same. I can assure you Stoops has been around long enough that he's very well aware what has to be done, certainly moreso than people on this site. And you can bet your bottom dollar I'll scream the loudest if he doesn't come thru. I'm hoping the turn around starts Sat but UK's facing tall odds. If they can somehow, someway give a UF type effort they maybe can pull off the biggest upset of the season.
It is already the norm for schools to lose a bunch in any given class due to transfer. Then consider we completely changed offensive schemes and it's really no surprise.
Just harnessing the vocal fanbase for easy clicks.
Just harnessing the vocal fanbase for easy clicks.
I mean tracing our struggles back to recruiting misses isn’t clickbait lol it’s true everyone loses players but that wasn’t the point of the article, I get that yall don’t like Ksr but come on. If you have 1-2 starters from 2 classes it’s going to show up on the field. Portal or not
I don't care one way or another about KSR. It is what it is. I am just being honest about what it is and what it isn't.
Every football program has recruiting misses. Some of you guys act like UK is the only program where everything doesn't go right. The truth is that SEC football coaches are always trying to solve problems and put out fires. There are seasons when everything seems to go right and other seasons when your key players blow out their knees in September. Winning is about recruiting, development, and luck.
If Stoops can maintain a top half of the SEC defense and fix our OL so it plays like the BBW of a few years ago, then we will be a NY weekend bowl program again. Otherwise we won't be. I don't put any improvement past Stoops' ability. He comes from a family of football coaches and knows what it takes. But what he is trying to do here is very difficult and challenging. Truthfully, most of us here can't even begin to imagine how challenging.
That's quite an imagination you have there. When I say, over and over, that this has been a season of regression, and that our OL needs to get fixed, how do you twist that into "things didn't go wrong this season"? LOL! You do know what regression means, right?
You’re overthinking here. There were some things that went wrong this year. Whether it be Leary not being as good as we thought, the tempo of our offense being extremely slow, etc. I’m still not sure why you think the title of the article was “click bait” or “misleading”…..the article provided an opinion that correlated directly with the title of the article. You might not agree that things went wrong this year, but the title was not click bait it misleading based on what it contained.
What on earth are you talking about? For goodness sakes, can you read?
Again, especially for you, this is a season of regression and our OL and WR position coaches need to be fired and replaced by experienced Power 5 coaches who can recruit and develop SEC talent. Let me know if you need it clearer than that.
I’m talking about my disagreement with you from the beginning. You called the title of the article click bait and misleading and I’m saying you’re wrong.
Well I never said Uk was the only program with recruiting misses. And is agree that if the fix the OL and defense they’ll get back. Obviously the way to do that is not have as many misses in recruiting
Actually, no. Every program has misses in recruiting. You will not find any SEC program that doesn't have some recruiting misses every year. Even GA and AL have recruiting misses. The ones who get away are gone. The ones who join the program are the only ones that count.
In UK's present case, the way to do it is to replace Yenser and Woodward with capable SEC position coaches, keep our coordinators and Marrow on board, continue to expand our recruiting footprint, continue to evaluate and develop SEC talent, and fix the glaring inefficiencies on our offense (including tempo, missed assignments, drops, and especially stupid penalties). There is no magic bullet. Every year is a new season, and lots of things have to be developed right and go right.
You can't equate how many exhausted eligibility with recruiting misses. On offense, it's much more because of a drastic change in philosophy which meant those guys no longer fit and an upgrade in offensive recruiting led to transfers out.
If it was a recruiting issue, it would show on defense too.
He's wrong on purpose like Maggard.
What he won't tell you is that seasons like this one and 2022 are far more likely to be the norm as best case seasons going forward due to NIL issues and how difficult the SEC is and the high probability we go to a 9 game sec schedule in 2025.
None of those that transferred moved up to top 20 programs. Many moved down a lot in terms of program quality. Does this indicate poor initial evaluation of the players potential?
That’s more likely than anything else. It’s normal for a number of guys to not pan out. Wgat is different now is that instead of sitting, guys are more likely to take advantage of the transfer portal. But yes, out of those two classes, we didn’t really lose anyone of significance.
It may. I think we’d have to compare to other schools to see if they have a similar percentage to know for sure. Stoops signees in the early years who would later transfer all went to lower levels of play with the exception of Badet iirc
We have a guy from a P5 conference at the Oline job. The only problem is his teams won 3 games in three years while he was there. His next job offer was for a high school coordinator until the buddy system got him some obscure job in the NFL.
I have been unwilling to critique Yenser in case I received bad info from the beginning of his tenure at UK. Yenser is in over his head and lacks leadership skills. I was told he never worked the OL very hard in his first year. Our defense even noticed it.
He loves taking the position of defending so badly I think he forgot what he was even defending.
I think some of that may also be development issues, we’ve lost a few OL recruits over the last 3-4 years and while that’s the hardest group to evaluate imo I just don’t think that happens if we have Schlarmann though the biggest issue over this period imo is the lack of finding a HS QB to develop. I get that guys don’t pan out but it does seem we have quite a few and think some of it may be from a coaching standpoint.
