The House of Blue

I dont put much into ESPN rankings. Look who they have doing commentary. Two former coaches that were fired for recruiting violations. ESPN is a joke. They pump up their favorites and thats it. Even in basketball they slam UK whenever they have an opportunity.

Ranking are like A**holes. Everybody and his brother has a different one. Joker said in his interview that the only ranking he trust is the ones given by his assistants. IMO a good policy to have.

Rankings are pointless (I do like 4* commits tho). Texas gets a top 5 class every year and didn't make a bowl game two seasons ago. I wonder what the Boise St classes got ranked as the past 5 years. It's solely about getting kids that have potential, fit your system and work hard. Think UK did a great job at all three aspects in this class.

If these guys were experts they'd be coaches instead of evaluators.

ESPN ranked Towles as an Athlete instead of a QB... I don't care what they say. They also failed to show him as one of our top recruits on the sidebar showing our recruits.

Ranking full teams of recruits is near impossible, really. The difference between #24 and #34 (examples) is basically next to nothing. Sure, you can say the top 10 are a lot better than 30-50, but can any of these guys truly diferentiate these classes in the middle. They have a job and make money at it because we fans eat it up and will discuss and disect until there is no stone unturned on their true ability and how the kid who runs a 4.4 has to be so much better than the one that runs a 4.45. Regardless, I enjoyed keeping up with our signing day and think the Cats got much better today. Congrats to the coaching staff and WELCOME to all of our new players!

LOL

Because basketball and football can not be compared in any manner. Those that try just show their lack of understanding.

Oh, it matters. Every year, the team that wins the national championship (or the other team in the game) has had yearly classes at or near number one in the rankings.

BAM. And I think 247, which was building it's database throughout this year, didn't get a chance to evaluate many of Kentucky's recruits.

Well, Jdrum, they may not have smoked us, but they did both finish ahead of us. That should not happen.

And Jared, Does that mean that 247 had time to evaluate UL and Vandy's recruits but not UK's?

I'm not dogging our class by any means, i'm relatively excited and think we closed very well for once, but neither of those are very good arguments. Just sayin.

And according to scout we are like 13 spots ahead of Louisville. Nice try catmando

Depens on the dynamics of the team. Tennessee has had a top 30 ranked recruiting class since the mid 90's. Vanderbilt never had a recruiting class ranked higher than 60th before this year's success. Kentucky in 2007 had a combined recruiting class ranking lower than Vanderbilt from 2002-2007, but had good pieces in place and were a couple of plays away from being a top tier team and beat LSU. Florida has had a top 5 recruiting class since 2005, and yet last year and the year before were barely a 500 team, same for Texas. Boise State....well, Boise State. Oklahoma State shouldn't have been near as good as they were, and TCU took a crap on the recruiting rankings for 5 years straight with the right players in the right place.

The top 50 players in the country are usually pretty easy to identify. Beyond that, so much is involved including politics, exposure, camp attendance, grades, etc with regard to recruiting rankings. They are good barometers, but Texas and Tennessee are perfect examples of it's great if you recruit well, its' better if you keep them on campus, which Alabama and LSU have been able to do.

Stanford, yet another example of a team that has recruited "poorly" but continues to win, and win big. Kentucky also has been able to trade wins with Georgia, one of the best recruiters in the country, beat South Carolina last year with not even close to the same recruiting classes of the Spurrier years. Arkansas yet once again had a low, low recruiting class in the SEC and yet will continue to be one of the best teams in the league because they recruit to their system.

Kentucky's 2007, 2008, and by some measure 2009 were awful recruiting years, in whole. Joker admitted to it and it was easy to see. They weren't necessarily the worst ranked kentucky classes we've ever had, but they didn't recruit to needs, had issues finding athletes and settled for recruits in numerous positions. That can't happen again. The 2011 classes and 2012 classes produced athletes not seen at Kentucky. Ask the folks that show up to the practices on a day in day out basis, and gauge their reaction to seeing the 2011 class in person for the first time. It was shocking. it was eye opening, and that class led to 11 players playing in year 1. You'll see it again this year, because we are putting on the field better athletes, not just better ranked kids.

What Kentucky, until they start to win big time will continue to struggle to get is highly ranked big men. They will always, or at least usually, will have to develop those players because the great ones are easy to spot and are few and far between. They are coveted by the big boys and they are much harder to find, and project, but that's what Kentucky has to do.

But make no mistake about it, athletic upgrades are happening at every position, and Kentucky is going to continue to not just compete, but begin to athletically challenge even the best teams in this league.