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Kentucky Football: How Good Is The 2013 Wildcats Class?

People have been asking about ratings for this year's Kentucky football recruiting class, so we looked up all the ratings to give the Big Blue Nation a better feel.

The value of rankings is highly subjective.  Randall Cobb rated out under a 3-star, and he starts for the Packers.
The value of rankings is highly subjective. Randall Cobb rated out under a 3-star, and he starts for the Packers.
Andy Lyons

A lot of folks have been asking questions like, "How many 4-star recruits did we get this year?" The answer, as with beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

So what we did was take each Kentucky recruit and look up his star rating on each of the four major recruiting evaluation services, Scout, 24/7 Sports, Rivals, and ESPN. Then we averaged the rating by player, and then by service.

Here's what Kentucky's class looks like:


Name Pos Ht Wt Scout Rivals 24/7 ESPN Avg
1 Blake McClain DB 5'11" 181 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
2 Jaleel Hytchye DB 5'11" 165 3.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.25
3 Jeff Badet WR 5'11" 160 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
4 Justin Day OL 6'8" 285 2.00 3.00 2.00 2.00 2.25
5 Kyle Meadows OL 6'5" 270 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
6 Marcus McWilson DB 6'0" 195 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00
7 Nate Willis DB 6'0" 180 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
8 Nick Haynes OL 6'4" 294 2.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.75
9 Ramsey Meyers OL 6'3" 290 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
10 Reese Phillips QB 6'3" 210 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.00 2.50
11 Regie Meant DT 6'5" 271 3.00 2.00 3.00 3.00 2.75
12 Ryan Timmons WR 5'10" 186 3.00 3.00 4.00 4.00 3.50
13 Steven Borden TE 6'3" 250 2.00 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.25
14 Za'Darius Smith DE 6'5" 252 3.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 3.75
15 Alvonte Bell DE 6'6" 228 4.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.25
16 Austin MacGinnis K 5'11" 170 2.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 2.75
17 Jacob Hyde DT 6'2" 313 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
18 Javess Blue WR 6'1" 195 3.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.25
19 Alex Montgomery WR 6'1" 180 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
20 Jojo Kemp RB 5'10" 189 3.00 3.00 3.00 4.00 3.25
21 Khalid Thomas ATH 5'10" 175 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00
22 Jason Hatcher DE 6'2" 240 4.00 4.00 3.00 4.00 3.75

Service Average 2.91 3.05 3.05 3.23 3.06

So here, we can draw up the following conclusions:

  • Kentucky has 17 out of 22 players rated 3-star or above on average;
  • Kentucky has 9 players rated at 4 stars by at least one service;
  • Kentucky has only 1 player rated at 4 stars by all 4 services;
  • Kentucky has 3 players rated at 4 stars by 2 or more services;
  • The entire class rating is 3.06 stars.

Keep in mind that star ratings are just the subjective judgment of scouts. For example, Randall Cobb was rated a 2-star by Scout, a 3-star by Rivals, and a 74, which is a 3-star, by ESPN. Almost none of this class is ranked as low as Cobb was, and he starts for the Green Bay Packers on Sundays.

So the value of these ratings are extremely general and almost never reflect the characteristics that separate great players from ordinary ones -- those tend to be located in the center left of the player's chest, and are invisible to most scouts.

Anyway, I hope this helps you see what all the fuss was about. I don't recall a UK class that was ranked above 3-stars by any recruiting service, although there may in fact be one somewhere in my lifetime.