Kentucky's Blue-Chip Ratio

The eighth recruiting class of the Mark Stoops era is officially over and now the staff is onto spring football and recruiting the class of 2021 as they continue to build a program. After pulling in the 23rd ranked class with seven blue-chip prospects per the 247 Sports composite rankings, it's clear that UK is raising their ceiling by the work they have done on the recruiting trail. The good folks at SB Nation/Banner Society have used the Blue-Chip Ratio which is simply a measure to predict who are the true national championship contenders. Per their research, the national champion has fit this requirement since modern recruiting rankings started in the 2000s. The teams with a majority of blue-chips (four or five-star recruits) have proven to be among the best in college football. So just exactly how does that relate to Kentucky? When Mark Stoops arrived in Lexington, the Wildcats had just two composite four-star players (Darrian Miller and Patrick Towles) with zero coming from outside the state of Kentucky. The stories have been told how bad that UK roster was and the 4-20 record with 16 SEC losses from 2012-13 accurately tell that tale. The top priority for Stoops and recruiting ace Vince Marrow was to immediately upgrade the personnel on the roster and the only real way to do that was to have a great eye for three-star talent in addition to winning some recruiting battles for blue-chippers. We saw some of that early success when UK pulled off late recruiting wins for Jason Hatcher and Marcus McWilson in addition to landing Za'Darius Smith from the junior college ranks. Fast forward to year eight and Kentucky will enter 2020 with 21 former blue-chip recruits on their opening day roster creating a blue-chip ratio of 24.7%. While still sitting towards the bottom of the SEC, that is a very large step from where they were when Mark Stoops accepted this job in December of 2012. Recruiting work from Vince Marrow in the Buckeye State has built the backbone of this collection, but UK has also recruited Kentucky (Landon Young, Drake Jackson, Jared Casey, JJ Weaver, John Young) in addition to dipping into the DMV, Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana for other blue-chippers. That's not even considering the transfer portal where they've added Xavier Peters, Kelvin Joseph and Joey Gatewood within the calendar year. You have to be creative when it comes to roster construction and Kentucky has shown ability to effectively add talent to their roster in multiple ways. There's no denying that the SEC is a recruiting first league and that becomes relevant every year when we look at the final recruiting rankings. In the class of 2020, the SEC made up 70% of the top-10 as nearly every program has a huge player personnel staff in addition to private air travel that allows their coaches the ability to recruit any place they want in the continental United States. It is going to be very hard for Kentucky to reach that upper echelon when it comes to the recruiting rankings so they have to be flexible and ahead of the curve when it comes to building their roster. Recruiting junior colleges and hitting the transfer portal is one way to do it, but you also must be able to have an eye for talent. No matter who is running the University of Kentucky football program, their success is always going to be determined in how they develop three-star talent. Yes, Rich Brooks had Andre Woodson and Corey Peters but his staff also landed and developed Randall Cobb and Wesley Woodyard into program legends and pros who've spent a decade-plus in the National Football League. After seeing seven years of work by Mark Stoops and his staff, they are showing that same ability. Since Stoops arrived, the program has produced eight NFL draft picks and only Za'Darius Smith was a consensus blue-chip recruit. That number will hit at least 10 next month and the blue-chip ratio will climb up to 20% thanks to Lynn Bowden Jr. With Kentucky now recruiting a higher level of athlete you will see this number rise, but this program is always going to succeed based on their hit rate with three-stars. When you look at this year's projected depth chart, Kentucky will be leaning heavily on a boatload of three-stars. Yes, there are three blue-chippers on the offensive line but at nearly every other position Kentucky will need three-stars to produce at a high level. For the offense to really hum, high three-star Terry Wilson must find a way to take the UK passing game to a level it hasn't been to in the Mark Stoops era. In the backfield, Kentucky returns over 2,000 rushing yards to its running backs room thanks to a trio of former three-star backs. https://twitter.com/UKFootball/status/1234561308424409088?s=20 On the defensive side, low three-star Quinton Bohanna looks to become the best nose man in college football while UK happily returns three-star redshirt senior Davonte Robinson back to the secondary. Boogie Watson was a low three-star recruit from the DMV and the class of 2016 member may be the best player on the defense. There is no hiding from the fact that Kentucky is still heavily reliant on three-star talent. Mark Stoops and his staff have helped raise the recruiting ceiling in Lexington to unprecedented heights, but at the end of the day this will always be an evaluate and develop program. In 2020, Kentucky will have seven former blue-chippers starting for them, but the team will run on how all of the three-star players on the roster produce. More blue-chips should give you bigger room for error, but the other players exceeding their ranking are what will determine if this season or any season can be special.