UK football fighting, and beating, national brands more often for ‘Kentucky kids’
It’s nice when a plan comes together — especially when that plan plants the seeds for a potential huge windfall to come.
The NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision teams just wrapped up a 16-day recruiting contact period that lasted through Saturday. When it kicked off Jan. 17, Frederick Douglass High School was one of the first destinations visited by University of Kentucky recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow.
Douglass is a little less than 4 miles from Kentucky’s campus, and it’s called home by three of the state’s most sought-after recruits — including Jager Burton, the top-ranked prospect in the state and a top-150 recruit nationally, according to Rivals. He, along with Douglass classmates Dekel Crowdus, Dane Key and Josh McCurg, was part of a smattering of in-state prospects who unofficially visited Lexington last Tuesday.
It was a trip spurred by Marrow, seemingly on a whim.
“Vince is spontaneous,” Burton said. “ ... You could tell he was coming up with it while he was there (at Douglass). I could see the gears turning.”
North Hardin seniors-to-be Jordan Lovett and Lavell Wright were in town, too, and partook in a photo — along with Marrow and former high school teammate Octavious Oxendine, who signed with UK during the December signing period — snapped during the UK men’s basketball game against Georgia that night. At least one other in-state recruit — South Warren’s Jantzen Dunn — was in Lexington last Tuesday; he “Had the best time at BBN,” according to a tweet he shared alongside photos from his visit.
“It was all Kentucky kids,” said Burton.
Kentucky recruiting Kentucky
“Right off hand, there’s six or seven guys we must get in this class next year from the state of Kentucky.”
Marrow said that on Dec. 18, the first day of the early signing period for 2020 recruits. Burton, Crowdus, Dunn, Lovett and Wright presumably are part of that lot (Key is a member of the 2022 class; McClurg is a senior who, to this point, has not been offered a scholarship or walk-on opportunity). There are at least six other prospects in the class — Apollo linemen Parker Bates and Logan Weedman, Bowling Green tight end Jordan Dingle, Hopkinsville athlete Reece Jesse, Somerset quarterback Kaiya Sheron and Pulaski County linebacker Tristan Cox — who have reported offers from UK.
It’s unreasonable to expect every single in-state recruit whom the Wildcats have offered to eventually sign with them, but since signing no in-state players as part of its 2018 recruiting class, Kentucky has wrangled its fair share of the state’s best prospects. It signed five guys within the borders in 2019 and 2020, respectively, and would love to match or exceed that total during the next cycle.
If it were to land Burton, it’d be the first time since 2016 (Landon Young) that Kentucky signed the state’s top-rated prospect. Jedrick Wills (2017), Rondale Moore (2018), Wan’Dale Robinson (2019) and Michael Mayer (2020) all found homes outside of the commonwealth. All four but Moore — who went to Purdue, coached by fellow Trinity alumnus Jeff Brohm — went to historical juggernauts: Wills to Alabama, Robinson to Nebraska and Mayer to Notre Dame.
Kentucky wins battles — four-star lineman John Young signed with the Cats over a lengthy offer sheet that featured Auburn, Ohio State and Oregon — but more and more has to contend with heavyweights within its own border. The mining of the state’s best talent by invading barons is a thorn in UK’s side, but also a testament to the caliber of athlete that Kentucky has consistently started to churn out over the last decade.
“High school football’s getting real good in Kentucky now,” Marrow said in December. “It’s just better. ... The Kentucky football players, and the development of them these last couple years has really been big for us.”
North Hardin head coach Brent Thompson coached a few years in Alabama before returning to Kentucky in 2012. The states are close in population — about 4.9 million for Alabama to 4.46 million for Kentucky in 2018, according to U.S. Census estimates — but ‘Bama produces more than 50 Division I football players every year; Kentucky has had less than half that total sign with universities as part of the 2020 class.
Alabama is anywhere from 10-20 degrees warmer than Kentucky, on average, and 386 schools sponsor 11-man football in that state compared to only 221 in Kentucky; therefore, it’s not unreasonable to expect it to generate more players. As for comparisons of the overall quality ...
“I can tell you right now that the talent you see here in Kentucky is just as good as the talent that you would see down there in Alabama,” Thompson said.
Basketball was the most widely-played sport by high school boys in Kentucky until 1990, when football overtook it for the first time. Participation in the sport has declined the last few years, following a national trend, but it remains the most popular activity in this state. And its coaches seem to be taking that interest more seriously than ever: offseason training programs are a staple of the state’s most successful high school teams, and a 2018 proposal that sought to end spring football, effective this school year, was withdrawn four months before it came to a vote due to outcry from coaches across Kentucky.
The state did not have a spring practice season from 1977-1997, and its re-implementation is often cited as a reason the sport has grown in the commonwealth.
“We’ve got to produce what the next level is looking for, just like when they get to the next level, they gotta produce what the NFL teams are looking for,” Thompson said. “That’s something we try to do. We try to make sure we produce the whole athlete, not just a football player. If you’re not in another sport, we’re in there in the weight room. We’re not just lifting weights, either. We’re making sure that they’re taking care of their bodies, diet-wise and flexibility-wise and speed wise. We continue to do stuff every day of the week.”
The pitch
When Kentucky recruited Adrian Middleton out of South Warren High School, its message was simple.
“(Mark Stoops) just said, ‘Be patient. Wait until we get the recruits in, keep working hard and something good will happen,” Middleton told the Bowling Green Daily News when he signed with UK in February 2014.
Kentucky has continued to bring in high-quality recruits, and it’s in part due to the groundwork laid by in-state stars that went on to produce at a high level — like Middleton, a starter on three consecutive bowl teams from 2016-2018. Patience, to some degree, will always be preached because of the nature of development, but Stoops and company have fruit to which they can point and demonstrate their role in its cultivation, a crucial element the program lacked in the earlier part of last decade.
It’s noticed, outside and inside the commonwealth.
“I think UK is looked at differently by this crop of kids coming up,” said South Warren head coach Brandon Smith, who’s been part of the school’s staff since it opened in 2010. “It’s not so much, ‘This is our vision, this is what we could do.’ It’s more of, ‘This is what we’ve done. We’re playing in the best league and at a high level.’ That approach is probably the most notable thing where I’ve seen a difference.”
Dunn in addition to Kentucky has reported offers from Baylor, Miami, Tennessee and Virginia Tech. When the Herald-Leader spoke with Smith, staff from Oklahoma — the most tradition-laden school that’s offered the three-star defensive back — had visited him in Bowling Green earlier that day.
“Our state is consistently putting out high-profile guys, and out-of-state schools are coming in to try and poach ‘em,” Smith said. “ ... I think from Kentucky’s standpoint, it’s crucial to try and keep those guys in state.”
One way it tries to do that is selling in-state stars on what staying home can do for them decades down the road. Its player development program, currently under the direction of former Stoops player Courtney Love, aims to help players build off-the-field relationships while they’re in school to improve their professional outlook beyond football.
That piece of the equation was a difference-maker for Oxendine, Thompson said.
“They do a wonderful job of telling the young men from Kentucky that it’s a 40-year decision,” Thompson said. “It’s not just the three and a half, four years you’re at Kentucky. When you look at how this state takes care of their own, they embrace it and take care of you and do stuff for you. The connections you’re going to make — obviously you can make connections at other schools — but the connections you’re going to make at the University of Kentucky, it’s something that they’ll be able to use for a lifetime.”
That aspect isn’t lost on Burton, who will be a cornerstone of any school’s recruiting class come December. He has NFL aspirations — and at 6-foot-4, 270-pounds, the offensive guard should one day have a shot — but says he’d like to eventually open a restaurant-and-bar wherever he plays in college.
Burton’s friend Walker Parks, another standout offensive lineman at Douglass and Kentucky’s No. 2 player in the 2020 class, didn’t choose UK; he signed with Clemson in December. The Wildcats will again have to fend off a host of national powers — the Tigers among them — to keep Burton home, a place where he’s already confident he could realize his post-football dreams.
“I definitely can see, if I went to Kentucky, that I’d be set up for the rest of my life,” said Burton, citing current UK players Kash Daniel and Drake Jackson as inspirations. “ ... I think with this opportunity, in my mind I shouldn’t have to work a normal job if I take advantage of it. I can set myself up for the rest of my life even if I don’t make the NFL.”
