Judging Recruits by who is Interested in Them

After the commitment of Nick Martin last week, I was encouraged by the fact that not only is Martin a talented linemen, but had scholarship offers from several big name schools, including Iowa and Notre Dame.  I've always thought that a good factor is just how much expectation we should have with a incoming football recruit is to take a look at who else recruited him.  Take Randall Cobb for instance.  Despite only being a 2-star prospect (scout.com), Tennessee went after Cobb hard late, and he had offers from Mississippi and NC State.  Early in the Rich Brooks era, we were getting alot of players whose only other offers were from the Buffalo's and Eastern Michigan's of the world.  And while you will occasionally find a diamond in the rough this way, compiling an entire class of those guys is not a good recruiting plan.  So, I dug into the scout.com database to see who else was going hard after UK's 15 Class of 2011 recruits (listed are other schools who OFFERED the kid, not just recruited): Darrian Miller (4-star OT) -Alabama, Tennessee Jon Davis (4-star TE) -Louisville, Purdue, Illinois Nick Martin (3-star OT) -Tennessee, South Carolina, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan St, Northwestern, Boston College, Cincinnati, Ball State, Indiana Ashley Lowrey (3-star S) -Air Force, Illinois, UAB, Eastern Kentucky, Western Carolina Nile Daniel (3-star WR) -Arkansas, Maryland, Tennessee, South Florida, West Virginia, Troy Christian Coleman (3-star OT) -Duke, MTSU, Memphis Riyahd Jones (3-star CB) -No Other Offers Clint Tucker (3-star DT) -Kansas Glen Faulkner (3-star S) -No Other Offers Daylen Hall (2-star CB) -Marshall Blake Terry (2-star MLB) -Louisiana-Monroe, UTSA Antonio Cannon (2-star WR) -NC State Theltus Cobbins (2-star QB) -Tulane Josh Forrest (2-star WR) -No Other Offers Now, I don't expect UK's 2-star recruits to have a huge number of big-name schools on their lists.  That can be expected.  But, I am very encouraged by our 3 and 4-star recruits and who they chose Kentucky over.  UK beat out Tennessee on 3 of those recruits, and Alabama for Darrian Miller.  And I am also encouraged by the fact that Kentucky is now getting these 4-star kids from other states.  From 2003 to 2008, Kentucky received commitments from 8 players who were 4 star or better.  Six of them came from the state of Kentucky.  Essentially, Kentucky only got elite players when they came from in-state.  Otherwise, we had to hope to find diamonds in the rough.  But starting with the 2009 class, Kentucky has gotten commitments from 7 four star players, and only TWO (Darrian Miller and Jon Davis) came from Kentucky.  That is quite an encouraging shift in that Kentucky seems to be able to get more elite players nationally in the past 3 classes.  Keep an eye out on this over the Joker Phillips era and see if he can continue the Rich Brooks momentum in recruiting.     Dequin Evans (California) Donte Rumph (Virginia) Morgan Newton (Indiana) Ryan Mossakowski (Texas) Joe Mansour (Georgia)