First Down Kentucky: Stone Saunders is locked in

High school quarterback recruiting has been a rocky situation for the Kentucky football program. After finding some success at the position in the transfer portal, the Wildcats saw better results last offseason when offensive coordinator Liam Coen landed Cutter Boley and Stone Saunders over the summer months. Coen followed that up with another portal recruiting win when UK landed Georgia transfer Brock Vandagriff.

There was some concern when Coen departed for the NFL that Kentucky could lose some of those recruiting wins. That does not appear to be the case. Vandagriff is entrenched as Kentucky’s QB1, Boley is competing for the QB2 job, and Saunders appears to be locked in despite Kentucky accepting a commitment from Gahanna (Ohio) Lincoln QB Brennen Ward.

After taking an unofficial during the last weekend of March to meet new offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan for the first time face-to-face, Saunders is making a quick return to Lexington for Kentucky’s spring game on April 13.

Kentucky’s first commit of the 2025 cycle is 100 percent locked in with the Wildcats, and that will help the program as they begin to start closing on prospects and pushing for commitments. Mark Stoops‘ program is in a good spot as the spring semester begins to wind down.

Super League

For the last couple of years, we’ve seen both media and fans hinting that a Super League model could be something that could work for college football. In this model, there could be some promotion and relegation. That model became more real this week.

The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand and Stewart Mandel reported on Wednesday that the “College Sports Tomorrow” (CST) group made up of college presidents and sports executives has put together a plan that resembles the promotion and relegation we’ve seen used in European Soccer.

In the proposal, conferences would be eliminated and 80 teams would compete in the new version of FBS football. There would no longer be a selection committee for the postseason and a college bargaining agreement would be reached between the universities and players. The CST has even met with the ACC, but I’m not sure it is getting much traction after that.

The CST has not met with the Big Ten and SEC and that is all that really matter. On This Week in College Football at KSR+, I provided some more thoughts on the proposal. It is clear that college football needs some changes but they are probably going to come from Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti. For now, the sport is locked into the current model after agreeing to a huge media rights contract with ESPN for the expanded College Football Playoff.

However, things remain fluid. We are going through a huge transition phase and eventually some seismic changes will occur.

Got thoughts? Continue the conversation on KSBoard, the KSR Message Board. New members can try 1 month for $1.

Recruiting Big Board

Speaking of football coverage over at KSR+, we are pumping out the recruiting content. Official visit trips are getting locked in and soon coaching staffs throughout college football will begin pushing for commitments. The picture is becoming clearer regarding what prospects Kentucky is focusing on in the 2025 recruiting cycle.

My first big board of 2025 dropped on Friday as we took a closer look at the offense. Each position is broken down individually with a full list of targets. Come take a dive with us at KSR+ for only $1.

Open Practice

On Saturday afternoon, the Kentucky football program will open its doors to the media for the first open practice of the spring. KSR will have a full team there to provide coverage. Expect a full report to roll in on Saturday evening. We will have a highlight package, analysis, rapid reaction, and much more. This should serve as the perfect appetizer before next week’s spring game arrives.

Football is coming.