Kentucky Football: The Pace of Recruiting Analyzed

Hank raised the issue of recruiting buzz (or lack thereof) in a previous post which prompted me to do a bit of research on a quantitative look at our recruiting. There are all kinds of reasons behind everything that occurs in recruiting but I just started with some simple charts to show where UK stands compared to last year and with regard to other programs.

First I took a look at the timing of how our classes came together. The first chart shows how Stoops 2015 class is measuring up to the 2014 class with regard to when the recruits announce their commitments. The X-axis shows when the players signed with respect to National Signing Day — day zero — while the Y-axis is a running total of the class size.

The next chart leans more toward the level of the classes. In this one the running average of the star ratings are tracked. A data point is created with each new recruit which represents the average star rating of the class. Just for grins I have also included Alabama's value for '15.

In getting back to pace, I also charted Kentucky against a handful of other teams. For comparison I selected two teams also with their coach going into their second year (Tennessee, Arkansas), a bitter rival (Louisville) and the gold standard (Alabama). These charts are for the '14 and '15 recruiting classes.

There are a lot of comments I'm tempted to offer but I'll wait until I hear yours.