UK Football Poised For Important Recruiting Weekend

Mark Stoops and Kentucky football will be hosting several highly-rated recruits this weekend. They'll tour the facilities, meet current commitments and players, watch some game tape with their prospective position coach, and also take in the Kentucky-North Carolina game. UK football could do worse than exposing their recruits to the passion of BBN via a home basketball game. It at least help land Matt Elam last December.

Some of these players are ranked high enough that if UK were to sign them in February, UK would almost certainly have its highest rated class to date, and beat last year's historic ranking. A non-exhaustive list of players visiting:

• Damien Harris 5 star running back
• Josh Smith 4 star linebacker (Vanderbilt commit)
• Marcus Lewis 4 star cornerback
• Nate Dalton 3 star cornerback
• Drake Jackson, a four star offensive lineman for 2016 class, also announces his commitment Saturday afternoon. Signs point towards UK.
• A lot of the 2015 commitments will also be present on their official visits.
• Maurice Swain, three star JUCO defensive tackle, is either not making the trip or has an Andy Kaufman-like sense of humor:

So pissed off that I'm not making it to Kentucky

— 〽️.SWAIN (@SwainEra90) December 12, 2014

Despite already having two cornerback commits, UK appears to be pursuing other cornerback targets. That could mean any number of things but I'll float two theories: someone is about to decommit/get recruited over, or UK likes Lewis and Dalton enough to make room for their talent, even if it messes with the positional balance for the class.

Lewis seems to be highly thought of by the recruiting services, not to mention had an offer from Will Muschamp. Dalton's profile lists him as 6'3'' which is impressive size for a cornerback. Oklahoma wants him so I'll take that as a sign that he's a player.

Current Commitments (rankings derived from 247 composite score)

QB: zero, and there probably won't be one.

RB: Andrew Dowell (4* listed as running back at 247, but could probably play positions on either side of the ball).

WR: Jabari Greenwood (3* and also visiting)

TE: CJ Conrad (4*)

O-linemen: George Asafo-Adjei (3*), Levon Livingston (3*), Logan Stenberg (3*), and Mason Wolfe (3*).

D-linemen: Jason Strowbridge (3*), Tyrone Riley (3*), Kengera Daniel (3*), and DaVon Hamilton (4*).

Linebackers: Eli Brown (4*) and Jordan Jones (3*).

Secondary: David Dowell (4*), Marcus Walker (3*), Kei Beckham (3*), and Jeremiah Dinson (3*).

That totals 17 commitments for a class that is probably going to total around 21-23 signees. As you can see, UK can afford to be pickier in the secondary, both sides of the line, and probably linebacker. UK signed five receivers in the 2014 class, so while the coaches likely want more than only Greenwood, they probably won't feel forced to reach on a recruit just to make sure they sign three.

Another possibility is that UK won't fill-up this recruiting class if they don't feel like reaching for the final spot or two. If they hold off, the left-over spots can be applied to early enrollees next December. Those signees would then be applied to this class.

Please add any visitors I've missed to the comments.