Big Picture Takeaways from 4 Kentucky Football Commitments

After a sluggish start to the 2023 recruiting cycle, the Kentucky football program piled up four recruiting wins in one week. RB Khalifa Keith, OL Koby Keenum, TE/WR Jakob Dixon and four-star DB Avery Stuart grew the 2023 Kentucky football recruiting class to 11, and launched the Wildcats from the upper 50s to No. 35 in the On3 Consensus team recruiting rankings. There are a few signals we can read between the lines from the four Kentucky football commitments.

Zach Yenser Wasted No Time

Say what you want about Eric Wolford’s coaching or ability or how he left Lexington, the dude could flat out recruit. Kentucky signed two top 100 players — Barion Brown and Kiyaunta Goodwin — for the first time ever and Wolford played a significant role in each recruitment. Replacing that pedigree on a short notice was a tall task, but Zach Yenser has made a few impressive early moves.

Kentucky needs a guard, center, tackle in the 2023 recruiting class, and maybe one or two more. He got a guard on board, Austin Ramsey, then pulled in one of the five best centers in the country. Kentucky remains in the mix for IOL William Spencer, and is a finalist for Naquil Betrand, an OT coveted by UK’s SEC competition. Oh, and Yenser helped secure a commitment from Khalifa Keith.

Only Vince Marrow has secured more commitments in 2023 than Yenser. Not bad for a new guy.

Kentucky is Solid at Center in the Future

Speaking of Yenser’s guys, Koby Keenum gave UK an important victory over Louisville. It’s not just a symbolic Governor’s Cup win. The center position has been the most consistent on the Kentucky football team in the Mark Stoops era.

Can you remember the last time a UK center struggled? It was 2017 and Kentucky had Florida on the ropes. Instead of just giving the duties to a young Drake Jackson, the Cats got cute with Bunchy Stallings to allow Nick Haynes to remain at OG. There were snapping problems and a perilous holding penalty that ultimately delayed a streak-snapping win for one more season.

Centers rarely get noticed, unless it’s because of an error. That’s not the case at Kentucky. The BBN’s love for the Big Blue Wall’s centerpiece is a big reason why they were able to lock up a player that can hold the mantle high once Eli Cox‘s career concludes.

Caption this, #BBN 😼 pic.twitter.com/eQhNxHbbsc

— Kentucky Football (@UKFootball) July 6, 2022

Big Win for Buff

Vince Marrow is going to be Kentucky’s primary bread-winning recruiter. For Stoops’ recruiting formula to work, he needs the other assistants to get a couple of big fish annually. Jon Sumrall provided that pop in the South during his tenure at Kentucky, securing at least one four-star prospect in his 3-4 person haul each year. When he left for Troy, a gap needed to be filled. Frank Buffano stepped into that void at the perfect time, landing a four-star cornerback right after UK whiffed on an in-state target.

Buffano has been at Kentucky in some capacity since Stoops arrived. Never one to steal the spotlight, Kentucky needs him to grab it a couple times a year on the recruiting trail.

Natural Challenges for Kentucky to Recruit Louisville

Mark Stoops made the state of Kentucky, particularly the city of Louisville, Vince Marrow’s top priority in the 2019 recruiting class. He immediately secured four players from the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) system. Two have transferred, one has one career reception and the other is J.J. Weaver.

So far, it’s been a boom or bust experiment for Kentucky. John Young and Izayah Cummings came to UK the following year and both are poised to become starters. The jury is still out on this year’s freshmen Kiyaunta Goodwin and Elijah Reed.

Recruiting kids from the city of Louisville, particularly JCPS, is difficult. It’s not because of the school on Floyd Street — they don’t even bother recruiting local kids — it’s the quality of play. As much as St. X, Trinity and Male steal the spotlight for dominating 6A, of the other 20+ schools there might only be two other good teams in the entire city. Butler, CAL or DeSales might be good for a few years, then it’s Central, Fern Creek and PRP’s turn.

This rotating cast of characters makes it difficult to evaluate film. When attempting to piece together a film room piece for Jakob Dixon, he blocked a punt against Manual with his foot. On multiple occasions he caught passes over top of people a foot shorter that did not even know the ball was incoming. You can’t judge the player’s tape, it must be in-person evaluation, like what Dixon did at camp this summer to earn a scholarship.

Investing recruiting capital in the city of Louisville is a smart move. It gets fans in the area excited and it’s a good way to stick it to your rival. Projecting the future of high school athletes is an inexact, imperfect science. It’s even more difficult in the city of Louisville. But if the Big Dog can get it right in ’22 and ’23, the Wildcats will be in great shape.