By Keith Taylor
Special to NKyTribune
Things were a little different on the recruiting trail for Kentucky coach Mark Stoops and his staff this year.
Coming off a 7-6 season and the school’s first postseason appearance in six years, the Wildcats snagged 24 players during national signing day Wednesday, including four players listed by most recruiting services as four-star recruits. The list of signees scattered across eight states and included instate standouts Austin Dotson (Belfry) and Walker Wood of Lafayette High School in Lexington.
Stoops called the incoming class the best in his tenure as coach of the Wildcats.
“I’d say it’s by far (the) best class, period, but by athletes as well,” he said Wednesday. “I just feel so good about this class top to bottom. The biggest thing, and I may be a bit redundant when I talk about this, but it is about their character, about their leadership. You look at these guys and a bunch of these guys are captains on their football team, they’re very, very good students. They’re competitors, they’re winners.”
Like Stoops, Kentucky recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow considers the team’s latest class the best ever assembled under the current coaching regime.
“This is probably our best one from top to bottom,” he said.
Although Kentucky’s appearance in the Taxplayer Bowl in Jacksonville played a role in the team’s ability to upgrade the underclassmen portion of the roster, it was a 41-38 victory over Louisville in the regular-season finale that turned heads among the nation’s top players and was a topic of discussion for the coaches and recruits.
“I know when our coaches went out in December I had a lot of people telling me our coaches were walking in those schools with a swag,” Marrow said. “Everyone was talking about the Louisville game. To me that win was huge for us.”
The crop of newcomers is an impressive list, led by offensive standout Lynn Bowden, linebacker Joshua Paschal, wide receiver JaVonte Richardson, defensive back Tyrell Ajian and cornerback Yusuf Corker.
LINK: Bios of Kentucky’s 24 signees
Bowden is considered one of the top signees in the class. A versatile athlete in the mold of Randall Cobb, he threw for 1,366 yards, rushed for 2,277 yards and threw 57 touchdowns last season and chose the Wildcats over Penn State, Michigan and Michigan State.
“We signed the best player in Ohio … Lynn Bowden is the best player in Ohio,” Marrow said. “Ohio was very loaded. We got what we wanted out of Ohio from top to bottom.”
Consistent with his recruiting philosophy when he arrived at Kentucky, Stoops and his staff went after the premier talent in the nation and didn’t settle while on the recruiting trail. Stoops said he’s optimistic with the direction the program is going.
“I’m very encouraged because I feel like we could go and compete and recruit anybody,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to get them. There’s a lot of schools that lose a lot of players. We’re not the only ones. You get the ones you’re supposed to, and I have a lot of confidence in that. I feel very, very good about this class, and like I said, I just feel like it’s the best class top to bottom.”
However, as Stoops knows, wins and losses aren’t made on signing day, but said the roster has been upgraded “another notch for sure” at least on paper.
“I’ve never denied that the on the field proof has to be there,” he said. “You have to verify it with wins. Nobody — you all are in here and you’ve seen the ups and the downs in building this program,” he said. “But you have to get some victories. Your players work to win games and your coaches coach to win games. And so it was important for us to take that next step. We’re not at all satisfied with where we were. We felt like we certainly left some games on the table that we had an opportunity to win, but we won some close ones as well. So we know that’s part of it. But I know this. We’re going to continue to work. We’ll be a better football team next year without question.”
And that’s a good sign for the Wildcats and Big Blue Nation.
Keith Taylor is a senior sports writer for KyForward, where he primarily covers University of Kentucky sports. Reach him at keith.taylor@kyforward.com or @keithtaylor21 on Twitter