Kentucky’s 2024 football recruiting is a success — with one glaring exception

The Internet recruiting services have rendered their verdicts on the 2024 recruiting class that Mark Stoops and Co. signed Wednesday — and the reviews are favorable.

ESPN ranks the Wildcats’ incoming collection of high school prospects No. 24 in the country. UK sits No. 25 in the ratings from Rivals, 247Sports and On3.com.

“A very good class, top 25 class, very balanced,” was the analysis Stoops offered Wednesday at Kroger Field at his signing day news conference.

From a big-picture viewpoint, Kentucky’s 2024 recruiting efforts yielded some clear pluses and minuses:

PLUS: Kentucky again controlled the commonwealth. For this year, at least, the return of Jeff Brohm to Louisville and the Cardinals’ 10-win season (to date) did not have a substantial impact on UK’s ability to recruit its home state.

According to the 247Sports Composite Rankings, Kentucky signed the top three prospects in the commonwealth, four of the top six and six of the top nine.

In 2018, UK signed no in-state prospects. In response, Stoops shifted recruiting ace Vince Marrow’s responsibilities to include the commonwealth.

Over the six recruiting cycles since, UK has signed a combined 30 in-state prospects, including such program cornerstones as Eli Cox, J.J. Weaver, Octavious Oxendine, Jordan Dingle, Jordan Lovett, Jager Burton and Dane Key.

Kentucky’s hope is that the 2024 in-state class will yield UK’s quarterback of the future (Lexington Christian Academy’s Cutter Boley), a starting tight end (Covington Catholic’s Willie Rodriguez), two building blocks in the restoration of “The Big Blue Wall” (offensive linemen Aba Selm of Simon Kenton and Hayes Johnson of Taylor County) and two difference makers in UK’s defensive front seven (the twin brothers, Jacob and Jerod Smith, from Corbin).

Louisville’s smallish high school signing class of 14 included one in-state player, wide receiver Shaun Boykins of North Hardin. The Cardinals have not signed more than two in-state players in any signing class since 2016 and have signed one player or fewer from the state of Kentucky in seven of the past nine recruiting classes.

With Brohm’s name recognition in the commonwealth and his ties “out in the state” from his time (2014-16) as Western Kentucky head man, he will almost certainly make Louisville a bigger factor in recruiting the state in the coming years than it has recently been.

But, for the first full-season battle between Brohm and the Cats, UK more than held its ground.

MINUS: No offensive tackles signed. With another transfer portal window and the February high school signing period still ahead, Kentucky has ample opportunity to add to its roster.

However, as of now, UK has whiffed on one of its greatest positions of need, offensive tackle. “We need a few more guys to add to some gaps on the offensive side,” Stoops acknowledged Wednesday.

The three offensive linemen UK has so far signed, in-state prospects Johnson and Selm (see above) and Toledo, Ohio, product Marc Nave, are all considered best-suited to play on the interior of the line. That is also the case for transfer portal offensive line addition Jalen Farmer, who is coming to Kentucky from Florida.

Marrow, the UK recruiting coordinator, held out hope that Simon Kenton’s Selm, listed at 6-foot-4, 284 pounds, could grow his way into making a move to tackle.

Since Landon Young (after the 2020 season) and Darian Kinnard (after 2021) exited into the NFL draft, tackle has proven a challenging position for UK to fill.

Some of that has been bad luck. Kentucky thought it had landed its starting OTs of the future in 2022 when it signed Kiyaunta Goodwin and Nikolas Hall. Goodwin, however, transferred out of the program after one season and an injury has Hall’s football future uncertain.

As a result, UK has become very reliant on the transfer portal in filling its offensive tackle positions. Given the paucity of tackles one tends to find in the portal who are talented enough to play successfully in the SEC, that is not a good place to be.

PLUS: A top 25-ranked class is a big deal for UK. If Kentucky’s 2024 signing class ultimately ends up in the top 25, it would be the fourth-highest-rated recruiting haul of the Stoops coaching era.

Using the Rivals.com database, the only Kentucky recruiting classes to rank higher than where the present one currently stands were in 2022 (13th), 2014 (17th) and 2020 (21st).

MINUS: No. 25 in the nation is in the bottom half of the SEC. According to Rivals, every SEC team ranks in the top 38 in the nation in the 2024 recruiting rankings.

Even at No. 25 nationally, Kentucky stands at No. 12 in the Southeastern Conference.

Yet, here’s the thing about recruiting rankings. Is there really any meaningful difference between ranking No. 25 (UK) or No. 20 (Florida)?

At Kentucky, the football recruiting goal should be to rank high enough that your player development apparatus and coaching staff have enough talent to work with that you can produce a team competitive within the conference.

At No. 25, UK’s 2024 recruiting effort should be within that window of acceptability.

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