For two straight years all of UK's football signees have made it to campus
The recent arrival of players like Lynn Bowden and Michael Nesbitt means that for the second consecutive year every player who signed with Kentucky in February made it into the program for their first semester.
That’s an accomplishment and something that a lot of other programs certainly can’t say.
High schools are doing a better job of preparing student-athletes to stay on course with their eligibility, UK director of football recruiting Dan Berezowitz told CatsIllustrated.com, but there’s no question that Kentucky’s coaching staff and athletics department deserves a solid amount of credit for a feat like that.
Of course, Kentucky’s not just recruiting good students. The first thing that catches a coach’s eye, and a staff’s attention, is always going to be skill and athletic ability.
“What we do is, as Coach (Mark) Stoops keeps talking about the recruiting, the selection, the development. We recruit a whole bunch of guys to make sure athletically they can play,” Berezowitz said.
But the next question has to be geared toward the classroom.
“And then we dive into their academics and their character and their football IQ, and that’s when coaches meet with them when they come on campus for camps and unofficial visits,” he said. “We have our eligibility office and Heather McAtee (Assistant AD for Academics and Eligibility), she evaluates every transcript of every guy that we’re actively going to recruit. So we get their transcript, we get it evaluated, we get a read on their sliding scale, where they’re at, all that kind of stuff.”
There are more early commitments than ever, and with the arrival of an early signing period and potentially an even earlier date on the horizon if the rules continue to change, it makes the task of digging into a player’s grades even more important. It also makes that entire process a lot more difficult, with a premium on prognosticating and reading someone’s personality, motivation and habits.
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“As you recruit guys earlier and earlier it’s hard to, you know, kids can make all kinds of changes in their academics throughout their years, so you have to not just weigh in the transcript but you have to weigh in the kid as well,” Berezowitz said. “Is he willing to work? Is he willing to go to class and go to tutors and do what he’s supposed to do? That’s the thing. And really, our whole program is built off of blue collar hard work, so if guys can go to class and follow what they’re supposed to do with our academic folks, they have a high probability to graduate if they stay here for four to five years and I think that’s evident when you see the number of guys that we’ve got graduating that are coming back, the number of guys that will graduate in December, and the guys that graduate before they leave here.”
Kentucky’s staff isn’t the only one preaching this “life after football” message. Really, everyone’s doing it, Berezowitz said. But it’s still a good message to get across on a human level.
Coaches will sell their track record, and their program’s, with getting guys into the NFL. But the reality is most players simply won’t make it. So it’s a delicate balancing act, then, showering praise on a player for his ability while simultaneously telling him the process is about more than just football.
“Coach Stoops holds a premium on taking care of your academics and getting that degree. And that opens up a lot of avenues for these guys because the NFL is really, really hard to play (in), to make it, in the NFL There’s 53 guys on a roster times 32 teams,” Berezowitz said. “I mean, that’s not even a third or probably 20-percent of how many college football players there are in a given year. So the numbers, as you go, high school players there’s a lot. College there’s a few less, the NFL’s even a smaller percentage of guys that make it and last. It’s a thing where we’re preparing them to graduate and be able to get a real job after college.”