UK Football’s Recruiting Jubilee Should Be Met With Caution

Pump your brakes kid…the high school football Cats haven’t won a game yet.

The big news coming out of the University of Kentucky this week wasn’t the progress of John Calipari’s Kitty Cats (as it usually is in mid-February), but the shocking culmination of the incredible football recruiting class hauled in by second-year coach Mark Stoops.  Depending on what service you look at, Kentucky sits comfortably in the top 20 teams in terms of a heralded recruiting class.  Despite still being in the bottom half of the SEC, Kentucky football is now a hot item in February and definitely a player in the Sports Are Involved conversation.

However, Kentucky fans must be quick to not assume that Kentucky is definitely on their way to consistent eight-win seasons, much less division titles, appearances in SEC championships, and crashing the College Football playoff.  Unlike basketball, which can solve program sicknesses by a pinch of John Wall and a dash of Demarcus Cousins, Kentucky will not “rise” to the top without consistent top 20 recruiting classes, actually winning games in a competitive conference, and of course retaining the coaching staff which has generated this hullabaloo.

So in other words, pump your brakes kid, the wins aren’t guaranteed.

In fact, only six years ago, Kentucky signed two talented quarterbacks and seemed poised to jump to the next level after the Andre’ Woodson era.  You can check that out here.  By the time Morgan Newton was tripping over himself to open the 2011 season against Western Kentucky, it was clear that the talent level was not near high enough for Kentucky to challenge in the SEC during the Joker Phillips regime.  And even though Newton’s class (and ones around him) produced a flurry of talented high school players, it sure didn’t ensure success when they laced them up in college.  In fact, as many UK fans know, it was downright embarrassing.

The Newton era serves as a word of caution.  Sometimes, the stars these players amass in high school don’t shine as brightly in the SEC.

However, the hope is that by recruiting several consecutive classes laced with four and the occasional five star player, then surely that some of them will contribute.  And the more that contribute, the better the chance that UK can get an SEC victory or two, as I expect them to do next year (Vanderbilt and Mississippi State home games look awfully tasty).

But again, pump your brakes kid…the new football Cats are still kittens.  Let’s hope one day they grow up to be Wildcats.