UK's hits, misses and unanswered questions from Wednesday
There were plenty of positives, some misses and a lot of unanswered questions still to be answered at the end of Wednesday as Kentucky's coaches wrapped up their first day of the new early signing period.
Hits
— Kentucky received signatures from almost every player on its verbal commitment list with the lone exception being four-star Rivals250 linebacker Xavier Peters. Considering it was already well-established before Wednesday that Peters would not be signing today, that has to be taken as very good news. It's a credit to the coaching staff that they were able to convince so many well-regarded players to forfeit the last month and a half of recruiting and potential opportunities to lock in. Some of those players surely would have had the leverage to continue to test the waters.
— Impressive big men are on the way. This isn't Kentucky's biggest defensive line class by the numbers, but there are some large, athletically gifted guys in the trenches bound for Lexington on both sides of the ball. Just take a big picture view and think about the future of the offensive and defensive lines at Kentucky.
Next year Kentucky returns almost every offensive lineman who was in the rotation this year. The first five-star in program history, Landon Young, will be a year older, and Southern Cal transfer E.J. Price will be eligible. Added to the mix will be U.S. Army All-American Darian Kinnard and the rest of this impressive O-Line haul.
On the other side of the ball, start with rising senior Adrian Middleton and a host of returning players from T.J. Carter and Kordell Looney to Calvin Taylor and Phil Hoskins. Throw in two impactful true freshmen from 2017 in Josh Paschal and Quinton Bohanna, as well as the players who redshirted (i.e. Jordan Wright, Chris Whittaker) and the likes of Davoan Hawkins, Jerquavion Mahone and potentially Marquan McCall if he sticks there ... and that's a line that has potential. Putting it all together is another story but there's certainly room for optimism.
— Winning on enemy turf. Kentucky scored commitments from two of the top 10 players in Michigan with McCall and DeAndre Square, the latter having been coveted by a Michigan State program that had somewhat of a resurgence on the field in 2017.
Hawkins landed an offer from his local Miami Hurricanes over the summer but promptly announced he was "all-in" with Kentucky.
Darian Kinnard's "home town" team was actually Tennessee, since he's from Knoxville and not Ohio, and while the Volunteers' late pursuit wasn't full throttle, Kinnard was willing to sign with Kentucky rather than wait around to see if Jeremy Pruitt's staff would make a late move.
— Bryce Oliver was an essential late get. Time will tell what kind of player the 6-foot-3 wide out will be for the Wildcats, but at the very least he's someone who Eddie Gran has coveted and a player who has been on Kentucky's radar for much of the last year. Had Oliver not been right there in place following Meechi Harris' decommitment and Shocky Jacques-Louis' decision, there really could have been a crisis at the receiver position.
— Kentucky's class is currently ranked 27th in the nation and that's good enough for 7th in the SEC. Kentucky's current 7th place spot in the SEC pecking order would be the best in program history during the Rivals.com era. Time will tell whether that holds, but it's not just a matter of who other programs add. Kentucky has two commitments yet to be rated and the Wildcats could still help their own cause with some four-stars still on the board.
Misses
— The five spots Mark Stoops mentioned that Kentucky might have to play around with seem like an awful lot the way Wednesday went. Most of the nation's top prospects are off the board and Kentucky's known pool of targets is relatively small for a school that will be trying to fill those spots. On Wednesday, Vince Marrow said he's confident that the staff will have no problem filling those five or so spots with the right kinds of players. Kentucky should be commended for batting nearly 1.000 on current verbal commitments but they do still have quite a bit of work to do.
— Receiver. For a program that's trying to take the offense to the next level, either with an explosive dual-threat quarterback or by expanding the passing game to provide greater balance, the receiving haul this year is not the best of the Mark Stoops era. Akeem Hayes, Marvin Alexander and Bryce Oliver all have talent, but they could have used another player there and there were some high-end guys that Kentucky really could have used.
— Trey Dean picked Florida. That was not a surprise to anyone who read the House of Blue during the day on Wednesday, as we had reported that the Rivals250 prospect would be picking the Gators. That was established earlier this week. Kentucky's staff did a good job of stoking Dean's interest and convincing him to officially visit. There was a concerted effort at the end of the Butch Jones era to move in on several Tennessee targets, Dean being one of them. But in the end Dan Mullen won this battle.
— Zero in-state signees. This is the kind of thing that some might be likely to make into a bigger deal than it really is. Of course, the Commonwealth doesn't produce much talent relative to the other states with SEC schools. Kentucky now recruits Ohio (and South Florida) like in-state territory and that changes the conventional thinking on building a fence. Plus, the 2018 class was not especially strong in Kentucky. Still, almost any head coach at any school in the country would like to have some local flavor to their class and fans certainly appreciate it.
Unanswered questions
— A pretty big Ohio trio is still unclaimed: Four-star linebacker and Kentucky verbal commitment Xavier Peters, four-star linebacker Christopher Oats and four-star defensive lineman/tight end Leonard Taylor are all still in play.
Kentucky would love for Taylor to ultimately sign before the present early signing window closes but right now he's tentatively planning to take official visits to Louisville and Pittsburgh in January.
Oats still has to finish strong in the classroom and while Kentucky is confident on him, his situation has been complicated and difficult to forecast for many months.
Peters is planning to officially visit Florida the weekend of January 19th and if he goes through with that visit then that could be concerning, but judging by Peters' recruiting history it's hard to tell if that trip will actually happen. He's got to finish strong off the field as well.
If Kentucky can land two of those three elite players from Ohio, the class gets a significant boost and should be reevaluated in an even more positive way. Get one and that's not bad.
— Who will Kentucky turn to for the other remaining spots? It's clear who at least three of Kentucky's "most wanted" recruits should be over the next month-plus. But who else, and at what other positions?
