Despite UK football’s poor 2024 season, Power Four teams were keen to sign Wildcat transfers
On the list of issues contributing to Kentucky football’s disappointing 2024 season, a lack of talent does not appear to be one of them.
At least if you look at the landing spots of the Wildcats’ outgoing transfers.
All of the 21 scholarship players and one contributing walk-on who left Kentucky during the December transfer portal window have committed to a new school. Exactly half of the outgoing group has signed with Power Four programs. Three will play for SEC rivals in 2024. Six will play in the Big Ten.
Add in the three players with remaining eligibility who have declared for the NFL draft, including possible first-round picks Deone Walker and Maxwell Hairston, and the handful of seniors who could hear their names called on day three of the draft and it becomes clear that the 2024 Wildcats were not short on talent. But considering that group went 4-8, won just one SEC game and failed to score more than 20 points against a Power Four conference foe, why have other Power Four programs been so keen to mine UK’s roster for reinforcements?
If those players go on to be key contributors for winning teams, it will be difficult to interpret the exodus as anything but an indictment of the job Mark Stoops and his staff did in 2024. But the fact that so many players on a losing Kentucky team were pursued by Power Four programs might also offer a glimpse at the inherent challenges of building a team through the transfer portal, too.
Projecting impact from transfers is not as simple as looking at where the player is ranked by the recruiting websites.
Former UK starters Dane Key (Nebraska), Barion Brown (LSU), Keeshawn Silver (USC) and Jordan Dingle (South Carolina) are likely to be featured pieces at their new programs, but none can be considered surefire difference makers.
Key is the biggest loss of the group as UK does not have a receiver on the roster that has proven capable of being a go-to option in the SEC, but even he looks unlikely to receive the same share of targets he got for a struggling Kentucky offense last season at Nebraska.
Both 247Sports and On3 ranked Brown as one of the 25 best available transfers despite his receiving statistics dropping in each of his three seasons at UK. Brown’s status as one of the best kickoff returners in the country rightfully earns him a boost in those rankings, but even the most optimistic of Kentucky fans had soured on his work on offense by the end of his UK career. After two offseasons of fighting off persistent rumors Brown was considering a transfer, it felt like time for both parties to try something new.
The departures of Silver and Dingle can at least be absorbed by returning starter-level players at their positions. UK has also already signed a defensive lineman transfer ranked higher by 247Sports than Silver.
Despite Kentucky coaches being open about the need for wholesale changes on the Wildcats offensive line, three outgoing linemen who did not even start for UK in 2024 ended up signing with Power Four programs: Koby Keenum (Mississippi State), Dylan Ray (Minnesota) and Courtland Ford (UCLA). Of the other four former Wildcats who signed with Power Four teams — Hardley Glimore (Nebraska), Caleb Redd (Kansas), Tyreese Fearbry (Wisconsin) and Khamari Anderson (Arizona State) — only Gilmore was a projected starter in 2025 had he remained in Lexington.
The 10 transfers who signed with Group of Five or FCS programs more closely resemble the bulk of Kentucky’s last two outgoing transfer classes where most players transferred to smaller programs in search of more playing time. Only six outgoing transfers landed at Power Four programs last year, and none started for their new teams. Two of those six reentered the transfer portal in December.
By signing 16 incoming transfers already, Stoops and his staff appear to have alleviated any concern about the blow the departures dealt the 2025 roster’s depth, but few of the additions are proven quantities against the level of competition UK will face next fall. Even if the outgoing transfers flourish at their new programs that is no guarantee they would have produced the same results had they stayed at Kentucky.
While the coaching staff will deserve at least some criticism for failing to best showcase the talent it previously had recruited to campus in this scenario, the ultimate evaluation of how big a blow the transfer losses render will not come until judged against the impact their replacements make in 2025.
“Continuity is very important, but in today’s world, you’ve got to do the best you can year-to-year,” Stoops said on high school signing day in December. “Let’s be honest. We didn’t have a very good year, so I’m pretty excited about change. We need some positive change.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 7:00 AM.