Kentucky's Stoops: We feel good about 2014 commitments

Mark Stoops knows a 35-26 loss to Western Kentucky last week did nothing but add accelerant to potential for negative recruiting against Kentucky.

But on his weekly Southeastern Conference teleconference, the UK football coach said he doesn’t worry about that. He feels like his coaches’ relationships with recruits will trump the negative voices.

“The only thing we do is build strong relationships with the players we have committed and continue to recruit other players that we are recruiting,” he said. “We’ll continue to battle all the way till signing day on quite a few prospects. We feel very good about the commitments and the relationship we have with these commitments.”

What does Stoops say to those recruits, a part of the 2014 class currently rated No. 7 nationally by Rivals.com?

“The big message is that these players understand we have a lot of, you know, room for improvement, and they understand that we need them on campus,” Stoops said. “These guys have been around our complex, and they like them. We’ve got good kids here, and so we’ve just got to get better. We need more talent, and we’ve got to continue to work. But these recruits are not afraid of that. I think they’re excited to get on campus and make a difference.”

Read more on Jennifer Smith's UK football blog

This story was originally published September 4, 2013 at 1:50 PM with the headline "Kentucky's Stoops: We feel good about 2014 commitments."