UK football recruiting notes: Offers rolling in for Belfry lineman Bentley; Big offer for Cats’ top commitment

Belfry offensive lineman Cole Bentley picked up his second scholarship offer from a service academy in as many days Friday.

Army became the latest college football program to extend an offer to Bentley, who received one from Air Force on Thursday.

It was a busy recruiting week for Bentley — a 6-foot-4, 285-pound prospect in the class of 2017 — who has also earned recent offers from Eastern Kentucky, Florida Atlantic, Tennessee Tech, Miami (Ohio) and Toledo.

Bentley was on Louisville’s campus for a recruiting visit Friday, and he traveled to North Carolina on Saturday to see Charlotte’s campus. The 49ers were the first program to extend him a scholarship offer. He also has an offer from Marshall.

UK assistant coach John Schlarman visited Belfry High School earlier this month to see Bentley, who was in Lexington on Feb. 6 for the Wildcats’ first junior day event for the class of 2017.

Kentucky is continuing to monitor Bentley for a possible scholarship offer, though the Cats are not expected to take as many offensive linemen in the class of 2017 as they have in previous classes. UK will also hold one of those spots for Lafayette star Jedrick Wills, who is considered one of the best offensive tackles in the country.

Rivals.com ranked Bentley as the No. 25 offensive guard in the class of 2017 on Thursday.

Big offer

Top UK commitment James Hudson announced Saturday morning that he has received a scholarship offer from Michigan State, which is one of the schools that was expected to challenge the Cats for his pledge in the run up to national signing day 2017.

Hudson is UK’s highest-ranked commitment for the class of 2017 — Rivals.com considers him the No. 7 strongside defensive end nationally — and he is high school teammates with fellow UK commitment Michael Warren, a highly touted running back.

A Toledo native, Hudson was also offered by Penn State recently. He committed to UK in July.

Lots of interest

Several major programs have reached out to UK recruiting target LaTrell Bumphus this week.

Bumphus — a 6-foot-4, 230-pound player from Savannah, Tenn. — received scholarship offers from Tennessee, Oregon, Southern Cal, Auburn and Texas A&M, all in the past five days.

Listed as both a tight end and a defensive lineman, Bumphus has said that he plans to visit Kentucky for the program’s next junior day event in early March. 247Sports ranks him as the No. 37 weakside defensive end in the class of 2017.

Other notes

▪  UK quarterback commitment Mac Jones picked up his first in-state scholarship offer — from Florida Atlantic — on Friday. The Jacksonville, Fla., native was recently bumped up to four-star status by Rivals.com and participated in that recruiting service’s camp in Orlando on Saturday. He showed up wearing a UK hat.

Update: Jones was ultimately named the top quarterback at Saturday’s Rivals camp and earned a scholarship offer from Indiana later in the day.

▪  Four-star running back Adarius Lemons said as recently as last month that Kentucky was the No. 1 school in his recruitment, but that’s no longer the case. Lemons told Rivals.com on Saturday that his new top five consists of South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio State and Auburn. Chad Scott was Lemons’ primary recruiter at UK. He is now on staff at UNC.

▪  Caleb Rozar, a class of 2017 athlete who attended several UK home games last season, earned a scholarship offer from Louisville on Friday. The Clarksville, Tenn., standout also has offers from Mississippi State, Nebraska and North Carolina.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 1:29 PM with the headline "UK football recruiting notes: Offers rolling in for Belfry lineman Bentley; Big offer for Cats’ top commitment."