Bud Dupree was a four-year impact player for the Kentucky Wildcats from 2011-14. He logged 23.5 sacks and 37.0 tackles for loss for his collegiate career, more than any other SEC player during that four-year span.

However, it’s not just numbers that make Dupree’s time in the Bluegrass so special. It’s what he represents for a program better known for its NBA draft talent than its NFL prospects. It’s what he means to a coaching staff entering a pivotal third year in its current regime, and to a program on the cusp of attracting top-20 recruiting classes on an annual basis.

Dupree was the 22nd overall pick in this year’s NFL draft (to the Pittsburgh Steelers), Kentucky’s first first-round selection in more than a decade. In achieving such exclusive draft-day glory, he serves as an example for the kind of talent defensive-oriented head coach Mark Stoops can produce at UK, and furthermore as an example of the positive trend the Wildcats have followed since Stoops’ arrival in the Bluegrass.

“I’m a testimony for him,” Dupree told the Louisville Courier-Journal regarding what he means to Stoops and the UK program. In more straightforward terms: Dupree validates Stoops and what he’s capable of at Kentucky.

But to truly explain Dupree’s impact, we have to travel back in time to the start of his career at Kentucky, which predates Stoops’ arrival on campus. Dupree was recruited and signed by former coach Joker Phillips’ staff, and he played for Phillips his first two years in the SEC.

A tight end in high school, it was the offensive-oriented Phillips who actually moved Dupree to defensive end as a freshman, and the rest is history. He was arguably Kentucky’s most talented pass rusher in each of his first two seasons, well before he reached his prime as a student-athlete.

Unfortunately, Phillips posted only seven wins during Dupree’s first two years at Kentucky, including a 2-10 season in 2012 that featured losses to all eight of Kentucky’s SEC opponents, plus losses to Louisville and Western Kentucky, the only other FBS programs in the commonwealth of Kentucky. That season resulted in Phillips’ termination at Kentucky, and at that point, Dupree considered the possibility of transferring to another program.

After all, he’d changed positions, lost many more games than he’d won, and now lost the coach that recruited him to Lexington in the first place, all in only two years. Hindsight is 20-20, but can you blame the guy for weighing all his options?

Stoops was ultimately hired and convinced Dupree to stay put. Two years later, Kentucky’s transcendent defensive end now follows in the footsteps of the more than one dozen defensive prospects Stoops put into the NFL just from his days at Florida State alone. He’s the first sign that Stoops’ ability to produce NFL talent was not tied to the fertile recruiting ground Florida State provided; instead, it’s due to his coaching, as Dupree is Kentucky’s highest-drafted defensive player since Dewayne Robertson, a 2003 draftee.

“When I got here, we sat down and had some conversations and I showed him exactly what we have done with defensive linemen and backers in the past and what we planned to do with him,” Stoops told the Courier-Journal.

He stuck to his word, and the payoff was grand at Thursday night’s first round in Chicago.

Dupree’s talent could be considered wasted during his four years at UK; that is, if you only measure it by team success during his career. Stoops’ first two years mirrored Phillips last two years at UK — Stoops went 2-10 in 2013 with an 0-8 record in 2013, then went 5-7 in 2014 just as Phillips had done in 2011.

For his career, Dupree was 14-34 and 4-28 in the SEC, never appearing in a bowl game. Again, if that’s how you measure his career, the only way to evaluate it is as a failed career.

But that’s not the logical way to measure Dupree’s impact at UK. He was a pioneer at the start of the Mark Stoops era. And considering Stoops had already done plenty to elevate Kentucky’s standing on the recruiting trail since taking the job, Dupree’s first-round status and NFL exposure will only further enhance the Cats’ recruiting in the SEC.

Kentucky is overhauling its facilities with its SEC Network money, and it’s cashing in on the national exposure John Calipari and the men’s basketball team bring the university. Stoops’ relationship to national championship head coach Bob Stoops (his brother) and his family’s recruiting ties in Ohio have helped as well.

But now Stoops has a recruiting chip of his own to sell. Not one Calipari or his family or the SEC helped mold, but one he molded himself in two years’ time.

That should do wonders for his recruiting success going forward, for the amount of NFL talent Kentucky produces compared to its draft record throughout history, and for his win-loss record on the field. That’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it?

Stoops is on the brink of taking Kentucky back to the postseason, and now he’s developed an NFL track record with last year’s lone draftee, Avery Williams, this year’s only other draftee, Za’Darius Smith, and Dupree. Big things are coming, and Dupree is a big reason why.

So while he may never play another game for the Wildcats, he should benefit the program for many more years to come.