As Will Stein looks to build roster depth, high school recruiting is as important as ever

Will Stein spent part of his Thursday at the Rotary Club of Lexington, talking to the members in attendance about his life so far as Kentucky football’s new head coach. Several questions were lobbed his way throughout his 30-minute podium session, and he answered them about as openly as any Wildcat fan would hope for.

Stein didn’t shy away from addressing the current state of college athletics. To build a team worthy of competing for championships, it’s going to take a ton of support. Support that comes in the form of raising money to pay for top talent — and Kentucky needs plenty of it if the goal is to contend in the SEC and make the College Football Playoffs. That new financial layer can help the Wildcats bring in good players who might otherwise be on the outside looking in at a bigger-name school.

“The days of teams like Alabama, and even Ohio State, some of these other squads having five-deep at running back where they can just stockpile these players,” Stein said. “It’s lessened.”

The ability to pluck elite players from the transfer portal has helped make dreams of raising trophies more possible for schools not traditionally in that conversation, but Stein knows that building a long-term winning program won’t happen with heavy and constant roster turnover.

It’s why high school recruiting remains a top priority for him at UK. You need to develop players from within to create depth down the road. Can the seventh offensive lineman on the depth chart come in and be ready to play at a high level? That’s what Stein wants to make happen in Lexington. His first Kentucky team might not be there; he’s attacking the high school ranks to make sure they are in year two (and beyond).

“When it comes to our team, do we have the depth that I want?” Stein questioned. “Somewhat, in certain positions. In certain positions we do. But some of them are unproven. That’s why recruiting the high school players are really important. When you see our commitment list right now, I think we’re up to 22 (in the country), because you still have to build it from those ranks.”

Stein must be a fan of On3/Rivals. 22nd nationally (and ninth in the SEC) is right where Kentucky’s 2027 recruiting class ranks on that platform. It’s a group that already consists of 23 commitments with the potential to grow that number to 30, a higher total than most classes across the country. He wants to begin building that depth now.

The portal remains important for immediate plug-and-play pieces, and Stein proved that by bringing in a talented crew of transfers this offseason, but there needs to be a balance. He compared it to the NFL. In the NFL, you have the draft and free agency. In college, you have high school recruiting and the portal. Both are vital to creating quality rosters.

“We go out and get depth where we need to with the transfer portal, but I do think it’s critical to have those developmental players in your program that can really spring forward for the next couple of years,” he said. “I don’t think we’re quite championship-level, but I do think we added a lot in the portal where we had to.”