UK has had difficulty keeping talented instate guys in the past but that now appears to have changed with Stoops. It's important to keep the high level recruits at home. The University of Illinois has struggled in recent years as has Indiana. I would say we would compare to these 2 schools in recent years. The Illini didn't get any of the top 8 recruits in Illinois this year, all 4 stars. Indiana doesn't have any of the top 13 in their own state. It's incredibly hard to compete in your league when you can't even bring in any top level recruits in your own state. Hopefully Stoops can keep winning the state of Kentucky.
Protecting your home turf
- Thread starter gobigblue812_rivals29381
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I think that winning the state kids can be huge. Look at the recruiting classes of LSU... most of their kids come from Louisiana. Tennessee had a top 5 class the last two years and a whole lot of those recruits came from the state of Tennessee. (I would tell you how many, but the Rivals page isn't working). This year they've struggled in state and they have dropped from 5th to around 20-25.
One of the biggest struggles for UK is that the state traditionally does not produce much D1 talent. Recently the production has gotten better, but it is still well behind a lot of other states. However, the good thing for us is that recently UK has brought in the majority of that in state talent. While I think that will pay off we still have to rely heavily on creating roads into other states. That is why Ohio is so huge for us. There will be up years (like this year) and down years in your state. We need to be able to head into other states and grab some of the better talent in order to continue to compete. It isn't easy and that is what makes Kentucky one of the hardest schools to coach.
One of the biggest struggles for UK is that the state traditionally does not produce much D1 talent. Recently the production has gotten better, but it is still well behind a lot of other states. However, the good thing for us is that recently UK has brought in the majority of that in state talent. While I think that will pay off we still have to rely heavily on creating roads into other states. That is why Ohio is so huge for us. There will be up years (like this year) and down years in your state. We need to be able to head into other states and grab some of the better talent in order to continue to compete. It isn't easy and that is what makes Kentucky one of the hardest schools to coach.
Agree, Ky does well to produce 2-4 SEC level players a year but they need to keep those at home. Still, Ohio almost has to be considered a "home state" for UK. At least southern Ohio.
That's not one of the struggles, that is The Struggle. In-state talent even if it is just 2nd string good is there for depth for every other SEC school. If KY could just produce 3, 3-star lineman a year for UK we wouldn't be so desperate for out of state recruits all the time. Convincing a talented lineman to come sit the bench at a school he has never been a fan of is tough because if he wanted to sit the bench, why not do it at a school your actually a fan of or is closer to home.
Not to get too far off in the weeds but having guys willing to show up and be part of a program even if they are riding the pine is what separates the elites at the high school level for a similar reason.
Not to get too far off in the weeds but having guys willing to show up and be part of a program even if they are riding the pine is what separates the elites at the high school level for a similar reason.
What's amazing is how well this staff has recruited and we haven't even registered a winning season yet. If Stoops figures out how to coach, the staff continues to develop the roster, and we start going to bowl games at least, the recruiting will only improve further.
That bit of info on IU is kind of surprising I think. While IU football isn't top tier, they have shown improvement in the last year or two under Wilson. Had a .500 record this last year after going 1-11 just a few years ago, and a bowl invite (even tho' a very minor bowl). You would think they would get at least 2 or 3 of those Indiana kids.
I would submit that we are developing the roster but not developing the players at an acceptable rate.
I would submit, "how can you tell we are or aren't developing well." Over Stoops time here the roster has lacked an alarming amount of depth and talent. And we have played underclassmen next to underclassmen. There's no way to know what rate the development is taking place.
Towles,Barker,Elam,Swindle,Timmons,Bone and there are more have been in the Stoops system long enough to be more developed than they are/were. Our recruitment is ahead of our player development,maybe player development will begin to catch up,but we haven't seen that begin to take place yet and Stoops is set to begin his 4th year. I think it is a reasonable observation.
Have they? Elam has been here for about a half-day.....and he's a linemen. Linemen take the longest to develop by far. Who has been Bone's QB to get the ball thrown his way? How old was Towles and who was his OC.....and what talent has he had around him? Not to mention the fact that he probably wasn't a good fit for our system anyway. Was Swindle a massively recruited talent? And besides the penalties, how did he play? And who started and rounded out the OL depth chart? And how old were they?
The fact is that these questions can go on and on and on. And they're not just excuses. They are questions that are darn near impossible to answer the cause.
You can question the development of the players....that's valid given he poor product but you don't really know. Just like I don't know for sure if they are being developed.
Of course neither of us 'know' how the development will play out,but we should be seeing evidence of it soon,my intent was not to say that I know but to point out that recruiting and player development are two different things.We have clear evidence of the staff's ability to do the first but the second is yet to be determined
Sometimes it's hard to make silk out of a sow's ear. I can see improvement, not much but some. It takes longer for some to develop than others. Most of these guy's are still very young, look at the juco's after the second year in here. Lewis was much better last year than before. One has to look at the level of all around talent in order to see vast improvement. We are still young and also not even deep enough. I think this year is when we see some more of the talent shine. GBB
The top kids in Indiana all are going to the B1G, but none to Indiana. In Illinois, 4 of the top 8 are going to Michigan State.