Five thoughts on Kentucky sports at the start of a new week from Cats Illustrated publisher Justin Rowland.
1. You can't go wrong with either Kofi Cockburn or Jalen Duren.
An interesting conversation/debate popped up at the House of Blue recently: Would you prefer Kofi Cockburn or Jalen Duren on Kentucky's 2021 team?
Maybe Kentucky gets one. It's highly unlikely they add both.
But for the sake of discussion, let's assume you could pick one. Who would you want?
I'd go with experience and what you know you can bank, so Cockburn.
It's entirely possible Duren is the rare freshman who can put a team on his back in March, but that doesn't happen very often. We've seen some transcendent talents fail to even make the Final Four, even as part of some otherwise solid teams. Asking an 18 or 19 year old to lead a team to a championship is a big ask.
"Getting old" is key in college hoops and UK is already going to be one of the most experienced teams in the country if you go by minutes played.
In Cockburn, you would be adding someone who you know will perform like an All-American.
If you point out that Kentucky already has Oscar Tshiebwe and it's not clear how the two would coexist, that's a good point. It may be that Duren adds something more unique in terms of playing style, but I'd still go with experience. Regardless of who you pick here, Kentucky is already a very deep and balanced team. Cockburn would be an upgrade over Tshiebwe, even if Tshiebwe turns out to be one of the better big men in the SEC.
2. Tyreese Fearbry and Keon Wylie both pick Penn State over Kentucky and others.
Penn State has been flexing a bit on the recruiting trail recently. That's not a big surprise even with their struggles last year. James Franklin has built a strong program in Happy Valley, and even if the Lions don't recruit at the level of Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson or Georgia, they recruit as well as just about as well as most others. Their class is currently ranked No. 4 in the country. With a star average of 3.35, it's due for some regression over time, but that's not our concern here.
We're talking about Penn State because Tyreese Fearbry and Keon Wylie both recently committed to the Lions. In those players, PSU has two of the region's top edge defenders. Fearbry is longer and rangier than Wiley but each brings a lot of positive pass rushing attributes to the table.
Both players officially visited Kentucky before making their decisions. At no point did it seem like Kentucky was the frontrunner for either player, but we had to at least mention both because they did take officials to Lexington.
UK defensive coordinator Brad White did a good job of convincing the players to visit but it was an uphill battle the entire time.
The on the ground recruiting dynamics in Pennsylvania are not cut and dry or similar to the Commonwealth because there is so much difference between Philadelphia (Wiley) and Pittsburgh (Fearbry). So there are some layers of complexity and nuance. Besides, each situation should be evaluated on its own circumstances.
3. UK should consolidate its recruiting map.
My opinion — which no one in a position at Kentucky has asked for, but I'll give anyway — is that Kentucky should consolidate its staff and focus on a smaller geographical territory. Pull back from the outer edges of the current map. I'd define "outer edges" as Pennsylvania and the east coast down to North Carolina, Missouri and Illinois.
I'm a fan of steering clear of Florida. It's pretty remarkable to me that Kentucky, an SEC program, has basically pulled out of Florida altogether. That is a reaction to what happened in 2017 and 2018. Guys like Josh Ali, Jordan Wright, and Kenneth Horsey have turned out to be good players, but too many did not.
But I think they can condense the map even more. It's really not fair to expect Brad White to find a lot of success in Connecticut or Delaware, or for Frank Buffano to mine Missouri and Illinois very well. These are not places with any history of sending guys to Kentucky and in my experience only the biggest SEC brands have the clout to extend their recruiting maps wherever they want.
There are some exceptions, like with Steve Clinkscale in Michigan, and maybe if a staff member has a special history or connections somewhere then that's fine. But we have a pretty good idea of what areas are fruitful and others that are not. There's no blame, it's just reality.
Between Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi there is plenty of talent. Zero in on guys from other places, sure, but there's enough population and talent in those states to just narrow the focus there, and you could improve UK's very strong operation in those states by putting three or four more staff members there.
But that's just my opinion.
4. Prediction: NIL will get more interesting this week.
It was exciting to watch the initial rollout of the first name, image, and likeness deals for college athletes when they started to be announced at 12:01 a.m. on July 1st. But my prediction is things will get a lot more interesting this week.
We've had several days for players or their branding agents and companies to start working things out with companies and entrepreneurs behind the scenes.
At schools across the country policies are different at the moment, although some guidelines appear to be similar. There will be more uniformity in the coming months.
One common theme: Players are submitting paperwork and details on their deals to the schools they play for. There is a bit of a waiting period or a turnaround time as these things are reviewed for compliance with the rules that are in place.
Until now, players haven't been able to do much. It doesn't seem like there was a lot of negotiation that was taking place behind the scenes before July 1st, which is good, because eligibility could have been compromised if that was more widespread.
But soon we'll start seeing deals that are the fruit of business negotiations that began after the rule changes took force.
For the most part these are going to be accepted, because anything that isn't accepted will be used against the school by others. There's an incentive to create the most NIL-friendly atmosphere as possible, similar to other parts of the arms race that has taken over college sports over the last few decades. Those that clamp down and reject their student-athletes' money-making opportunities will be creating problems for themselves in both the near and longer terms.
5. Three Kentucky commitments we need to talk about more.
It's understandable that guys like Kiyaunta Goodwin and the Wade twins would take a lot of our attention.
But the three 2022 Kentucky commitments that I think we should be talking about more are tight end Josh Kattus, cornerback Andre Stewart, and offensive lineman Nikolas Hall.
Kattus is one of the nation's best blocking tight ends and comes from a great high school program at Archbishop Moeller, a school that Kentucky is very familiar with. He has one of the highest floors of any player in the class because of his blocking ability. At one point it appeared that Kentucky might take two tight ends. Maybe they still add a hybrid, but they can sit tight with Kattus if they want, because you really know exactly what you're getting in him.
Andre Stewart got some positive publicity recently. Rivals.com's Sam Spiegelman was in Manhattan Beach, Calif., covering the Elite 11 and The Opening recently, reporting on some of the top football players from across the country. He wrote about a lot of guys, one being Stewart.
Spiegelman praised Stewart's coverage skills and wrote, "The Peach State corner had several pass breakups and consistently put himself in a good position to make plays all over the field, especially defending downfield."
Corners who have a knack for breaking up passes and playing the deep ball with precision are tough to come by.
The former Auburn commit and corner who was won over by UK assistant Anwar Stewart seems solid to the Wildcats and there is a sense that there's a lot of loyalty, especially for someone who has flipped once before.
Hall is the other three-star Kentucky commitment who I believe we should talk about as a four-star level player based on his pedigree and measurables. We've got a 6'6, 327-pound tackle-guard flex prospect, the son of a former five-star SEC football player, with an 85 inch wingspan and offers from a bunch of other Power Five schools. What's not to love?
