There were multiple signs that something was off with Vince Marrow and Kentucky

The news hit like a true bombshell throughout the Big Blue Nation on Monday. ESPN’s Pete Thamel surprised everyone when he reported that long-time Kentucky assistant Vince Marrow would be leaving high school friend Mark Stoops to work for XFL teammate Jeff Brohm down I-64 at the University of Louisville. What many consider the face of Kentucky football will now be working for a heated rival. Fans were not the only ones shocked.

KSR’s Matt Jones reported on Tuesday that the administration — and important people in program funding — were caught off guard by the move.

Source tells me that UK Athletics Leadership did not find out Vince Marrow in talks or leaving for Louisville until the @PeteThamel tweet yesterday

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) June 10, 2025

I also am told the major UK Football donors were not aware of Marrow’s departure either

Looks like Vince decided to do it without anyone in Lexington being informed

(Except the one guy on the text machine apparently)

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) June 10, 2025

Now that the dust is settling it’s time to dive into this shocking move. Should everyone been caught off guard by this unexpected move? Knowing what we know now, there were signs that a departure from Marrow could be imminent.

Let me explain.

Louisville’s pursuit never really stopped

Jeff Brohm left Purdue for Louisville right after the 2022 Big Ten Championship. Ever since that moment, a potential reunion of teammates was possible — some even thought likely. The Kentucky silde that we are seeing play out started that season after a campaign with legitimate SEC East title expectations ended at 7-6 with a shutout loss to Iowa in the Music City Bowl. This was around the time that Vince Marrow started to lose the carte blanche roster-building power that he had gained. NIL became the ultimate factor in team-building and high school recruiting started to become less important.

That is when some changes within the Kentucky football program started to be made. Meanwhile, Louisville never stopped pursuing. During this past year, many thought Marrow would leave for Louisville in December but that never developed. It appears the Cards re-entered the picture in the last few months to present a front office job for Marrow that made more sense than potentially taking a paycut to work on staff.

Louisville kept coming after Marrow. Marrow never stopped listening. There was always a chance that a departure could take place.

Flirtations with other jobs out of nowhere

Vince Marrow has often been linked to other job openings. Michigan has made a couple pushes to land the ace recruiter. Michigan State made a very serious move with Mel Tucker. However, each of those flirtations ended with Kentucky offering a raise once things got serious. There was even a time when the the head coach gig at Youngstown State looked like a possibility.

But we never saw an offseason where a job opening seemed to pop up at every turn.

Southern Miss head coach, Louisville tight ends coach, North Carolina tight ends coach, Bowling Green head coach, and potentially Kent State head coach. All of these jobs opened and each had Marrow linked as a potential hire. That all ended with Louisville re-entering the picture in June with a personnel role that Marrow decided to take.

Vince Marrow has always had a strong reputation in the college football recruiting space and that has led to some interest from multiple schools throughout his tenure at UK but we had never seen an offseason like this one where there seemed to be discussions about him leaving at every turn.

Kentucky’s new transfer class

The transfer portal era officially started before the 2021 season. Vince Marrow helped Kentucky land Wan’Dale Robinson, Dare Rosenthal, Luke Fulton, Tre’Von Morgan, and Justice Dingle. Each of those players was from either Ohio or Kentucky and started their careers at another power conference school. That would quickly become a trend in UK’s portal recruiting.

Darrion Henry-Young, Ben Christman, Jantzen Dunn, Tanner Bowles, Courtland Ford, Gavin Wimsatt, Chip Trayanum, DJ Waller Jr., and Gerald Mincey were other portal additions that Marrow helped bring to Lexington. Robinson became a true star and Rosenthal was a key starter on a 10-3 team but every other addition — outside of Dunn and Waller — either transferred to another school or never became a full-time starter.

Kentucky then decided to make a transition. In the most recent portal class, Marrow played a role in landing Cincinnati native Mi’Quise Humphrey-Grace but we didn’t see the normal volume. Instead, some position recruiting seemed to take over in a big class that valued experience and relied less on power conference players who had limited playing time on their resume.

This was all a clear change in strategy and equated a portal class that did not have Marrow’s fingerprints all over it for the first time in the portal era.

A super quiet high school recruiting cycle

Perhaps the biggest red flag didn’t play out until later in the spring semester. Vince Marrow was active early in January and February during the open recruiting period and when junior days took place in February. Nothing really stood out as off until the spring semester started to wind down and official visits started being scheduled.

Marrow recorded a big recruiting win by helping secure a commitment from four-star tackle Jarvis Strickland but some of this other targets in Kentucky and Ohio stopped being pursued by Kentucky. The two official visit weekend to kickoff the summer recruiting bonanza did not include one player from Ohio. Targets Jamarcus Whyce, Evan Hampton, and Josiah Hope committed to Louisville when it felt like UK made no push. This was ultimately the biggest sign that something was off.

Instead of Marrow recording some big wins before the summer visit blitz and then locking up some commitments early, things got really quiet. The Buckeye State has numerous power conference tight ends and none of them have visits scheduled with UK. This was not normal.

We alluded to things being weird with Marrow on multiple episodes of “11 Personnel”. That ultimately made more sense when we found out that Kentucky’s tight ends coach was heading to Louisville. Similar to how the program managed the portal, positional recruiting has seemed to take over, and Marrow had lost some recruiting authority at the Joe Craft Football Training Facility. All of that likely led to discussions heating up with Louisville.

None of these developments stood out as a true red flag own their own, but when you add them all together, you see the signs that there was a broken relationship. That has led to Kentucky losing their most popular member of the football program.