When Paducah Tilghman four-star offensive lineman Jarvis Strickland committed to Kentucky football in March, the decision was as notable for its timing as its outcome.
In the Mark Stoops era, Kentucky has landed many of the top players in the state. Strickland’s commitment continued that pipeline.
But Strickland is the first player to commit to UK’s 2026 high school class. With a March 30 commitment date, that marks the longest in a cycle it has taken Kentucky to land its first commitment during Stoops’ tenure.
Only once previously had Kentucky made it to April 1 of a recruiting cycle with just one commitment in Stoops’ tenure, his first full recruiting cycle when he had yet to coach a game on April 1, 2013. A year ago, Kentucky already had four commitments in its 2025 class by April 1, 2024.
Coming off a 4-8 season is there reason to worry about the relatively slow start to the 2026 high school recruiting cycle?
“You got the (transfer) portal about to open up next week, and so it’s just we got a balance,” recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow told the Herald-Leader this week. “… I think you gonna see real, real soon, real, real, real quick this stuff pick up.”
To Marrow’s point, the recruiting calendar looks much different today than it did for most of Stoops’ tenure.
Before the advent of the transfer portal, coaches frequently turned the page to the next high school class shortly after wrapping up its current one in February. Now, the 2025 high school class may be finished, but work remains to build the 2025 roster with the spring transfer portal window set to open April 16.
With Kentucky striving to bounce back from the end of its eight-year bowl streak, the top priority has to be putting the finishing touches on the 2025 roster. But Stoops and company know they cannot afford to be short-sighted if they want to return to consistent success. While the portal will offer no shortage of options to fill holes each season, a program like Kentucky that has traditionally found itself near the bottom of the SEC will continue to have to recruit and develop high school talent to have a chance of being competitive.
Even though Strickland is the only commitment in the fold for 2026, that does not mean it is time to panic.
The previous seven recruiting cycles saw Kentucky reach April 1 with between two and four commitments in the upcoming class, but eight of the 21 players committed by April 1 in that time eventually decommitted from UK. The reason for the decommitments varied, with UK backing off on some early commitments and others becoming recruits for traditional powers after their stock improved, but the status of the class on April 1 has not had much correlation with its final ranking of late.
While Kentucky’s 2026 class has started slowly, the Wildcats already picked up a 2027 commitment this week with a pledge from Tennessee prep quarterback DJ Hunter.
Kentucky’s history with early quarterback commitments in the Stoops era is mixed.
Now San Francisco 49ers quarterback Mac Jones committed to UK as a little-known three-star prospect almost two years before his 2017 high school signing day but later flipped to Alabama after his recruiting stock skyrocketed. Much-hyped class of 2018 high school quarterback prospect Jarren Williams committed to Kentucky at a similar early point in his recruiting cycle but eventually flipped to Miami.
Current UK freshman quarterback Stone Saunders became the Wildcats’ first pledge in the 2025 cycle on Aug. 4, 2023. While he went on to break multiple Pennsylvania high school passing records, Saunders’ size became more of a question the closer he got to college and it does not appear he was being seriously pursued by most of the elite programs that had offered him as an underclassman by his senior year. After enrolling at UK in January, Saunders has spent most of spring practice fifth on the quarterback depth chart, behind fellow class of 2025 signee Brennen Ward.
It would be unwise to place too much stock in Hunter’s commitment more than two years from the time he would arrive in college. Either party could change its mind about the recruitment over the next two years depending on how his career progresses, but the Wildcats at least have an early lead if his stock soars in the coming years and powerhouse programs begin increasing their interest.
Of more importance is which 2026 recruits Stoops, Marrow and the rest of the coaching staff prioritize visiting in the coming weeks.
Kentucky was to wrap up spring practice on Saturday. Coaches will be permitted to go back on the road to visit recruits next week when the contact period opens on April 15.
What happens next will tell us more about the state of Kentucky’s high school recruiting after a disappointing season. A slow start can be overcome with a handful of commitments this spring, but the longer the staff goes without adding to the class the more reason for concern there will be about future rosters.