I mean political in a sense that it’s a highly ranked in state qb so even if they do have someone or some others higher on their board it’s tricky working through it from a perception standpoint
For understandable reasons, instate prospects matter a lot to instate fans who read about homegrown hs players in the Sunday morning paper and hear about them on local TV sports reports.
Winning SEC games matters to Mark Stoops, because that is how he gets paid.
Stoops is smart. He has said all the right things about instate recruiting, and will continue to do so. However, he knows that a touchdown is worth 6 points whether it is scored by a player from Lexington or by a player from Georgia. In UK's 2023 recruiting class, 4 of the 19 committed scholarships were given to Kentuckians. There are 19 scholarship Kentuckians on UK's projected 2023 roster (out of 85 scholarships allowed), and 5-6 of them are projected to start next fall (out of 22 starting jobs). UK's football team depends primarily on out of state recruiting, as it must. The numbers don't lie.
UK's coaches have already offered scholarships to at least 5 QB prospects in the 2024 class. None of them are Kentuckians. UK's coaches have offered scholarships to at least 8 QB prospects in the 2025 class. One (Boley) is a Kentuckian. Liam Coen will evaluate QB prospects and prioritize those that fit in his offense. He doesn't care where their hs is, as long as they have the skills he needs here.
Because he said so, we know Boley likes Coen better than he liked Scangarello. People can offer theories about what Boley and Coen will decide, but nobody here knows. Even Boley doesn't know yet. So, if Boley doesn't know, then neither can we. The history of this board is filled with Kentuckians who chose to play college ball elsewhere as well as out of state prospects like Josh Allen, Lynn Bowden, Deone Walker, and Barion Brown who have starred at UK. The 2025 class is almost 2 years away from signing. Even if a 2025 player reclassified forward to 2024, that class is still 9 month away from signing. In recruiting, 9 months is a lifetime.
What we know is that a player won't sign with UK without visiting. So if a fan wants to know which prospects are seriously interested in UK, keep an eye on official and unofficial campus visits. Scholarship offers and campus visits are being discussed as they happen on our 2024 and 2025 UK football recruiting threads. These threads are community efforts and are always interesting to follow.
It appears UK has drawn an imaginary 300 mile circle around Lexington and has claimed that as "home" territory, "in-state" if you will. That includes cities such as Cincy, Indy, Atlanta, Nashville, etc. Glad to see the move into the Northeast, lots of players there. Area I always hoped UK would...
kentucky.forums.rivals.com
Although I don't expect the first 2025 commitment for a while, I will go ahead and start this new thread now. I see that we are discussing 2025 prospects on the 2024 thread, so we need a 2025 thread to accommodate the growing volume of 2025 discussions. Here are instate 2025 prospects already...
kentucky.forums.rivals.com