What we know about UK's recruiting map so far

For a dozen years before Will Stein’s hiring Kentucky fans became pretty familiar with the program’s approach. There would be a heavy emphasis on Ohio and Kentucky, with an occasional emphasis spiking in other parts of the map.

With a new head coach, staff, and organization in Lexington we are still learning about the plan for the future.

There will ultimately be hardened recruiting regions for the assistant coaches on the staff but for now it’s not so simple.

Sources have told KSR+ that for the Class of 2027, there is less of an emphasis on regional recruiting than there is expected to be in the future. There’s a reason for that. It might seem like Kentucky is starting on a level playing field with other schools in the 2027 class, but in some cases, players in the ’27 class have formed relationships with other schools over multiple years.

For that reason, the task isn’t to go to a set region and start mining for talent. Kentucky’s assistant coaches came in with their own set of recruiting targets and priorities. They were already recruiting a lot of players across the country in their previous jobs.

For the 2027 class the emphasis has been on position coaches going out and recruiting the best players they can find, or already had relationships with. In time that strategy will shift to more of a regional approach, although you always need to leave enough flexibility to modify the approach in specific instances.

On top of that the entire staff is part of an effort to blanket a five-hour radius around the school. That would roughly include a lot of Ohio, Tennessee, and other places that have been hotspots for Kentucky in recent years.

When it comes to Ohio the new staff has already demonstrated that it will continue to be a priority. The big change there has been that it doesn’t seem like Ohio will be such a special emphasis over and above other states. It seems like the emphasis will be more selective and on the best player regardless of where he is from. The previous approach in Ohio did give Kentucky a larger in-state recruiting “base” so to speak, since they often recruited Ohio like it was part of the Commonwealth. There are benefits to that consistency year over year, but it comes with its own problems, too.

What other places will the Cats target?

There have been some offers out West but not significantly more than in past years. It’s possible that for a few years we could see more west coast quarterback targets since Will Stein was at Oregon and had familiarity with passers out that way. But Kentucky is recruiting quarterbacks like a national brand with a best available approach.

Kentucky has a number of assistant coaches who will be comfortable recruiting in Texas, including Joe Price III and Cutter Leftwich, who has some history there. It seems likely that Texas wide receivers will be in focus in a significant way given that Price has those ties and is the receivers coach.

One state that Kentucky seems to be finding success in early is Illinois. It will be interesting to see if they can build on that with the very high profile Jake Nawrot on board as an elite quarterback commitment.

Jay Bateman has a significant recruiting and coaching history in the Mid-Atlantic region so it has not been a surprise to see the Wildcats blanket North Carolina and Virginia.

Sources are also saying Kentucky will heavily prioritize the South, traditional SEC recruiting country, as well as South Florida. Don’t expect Kentucky to try to get busloads of commits from South Florida as that strategy is sometimes enticing but is often poorly executed. But they will take players from that talent-rich area and it seems like Kentucky is going to be more willing to fight the battles in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi than it often did under the previous regime.