Biggest recruiting hotbeds: Kentucky
EDITOR’S NOTE: In an 11-part series, Saturday Down South contributor Gary Laney looks at the states in the SEC and what areas in those states produce the most players, per capita. The method was to count players who have earned at least a four-star rating from 247Sports’ composite rankings, because that ranking takes into account the rankings of all the recruiting services. We then calculate how many of these blue chip recruits each metro area has produced per capita over a five-year period from 2012-16. At the end, we’ll rank the 10 biggest hotbeds in SEC country in per capita player production.
In the last four years, the state of Kentucky has produced seven players rated four-stars or better, including one five-star recruit.
If that sounds like a thin football producing state, it is, but more of that in a minute.
That’s actually the production of four-star basketball players in the SEC’s one hoops-first state. And so good is Kentucky under John Calipari, the Wildcats pass on most of these prospects and take on the best from around the nation instead.
Meanwhile, if you thought those numbers might reflect what Kentucky high school football produces, you were close. In the last five years, the Bluegrass State has produced just 13 players rated four-stars or better and just one five-star player in a state with a population of 4.4 million.
By comparison, the metro of New Orleans, with about a quarter of Kentucky’s population, produced 21 prospects rated four-stars or better in 2016 alone.
So if you were wondering what Mark Stoops and company are up against, that should give you an idea.
Here are how the numbers break down:
Note: sorted by per capita production (the “Rural” category was left for last):
| METRO AREA | SIZE | PER CAPITA | 5 STARS | 4 STARS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabethtown | 115,000 | 1/115,000 | 1 | 0 |
| Owensboro | 115,000 | 1/115,000 | 0 | 1 |
| Lexington | 475,000 | 1/158,333 | 0 | 3 |
| Bowling Green | 165,000 | 1/165,000 | 0 | 1 |
| Cincinnati suburbs (Ky. side) | 425,000 | 1/212,500 | 0 | 2 |
| Louisville (Ky. side) | 1,100,000 | 1/550,000 | 0 | 2 |
| Clarksville | 270,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Evansville suburbs (Ky. side) | 60,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Huntington, WVa. suburbs (Ky. side) | 86,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rural | 2,000,000 | 1/667,000 | 0 | 3 |
Three things to know
- They are loyal: You can’t build an SEC program with the players the state gives you, but the good ones do tend to stay home with the Wildcats. Of the 13 four-star players in the last five years, nine have opted to go to Kentucky, which is remarkable considering that Louisville has been putting out pretty good products in the ACC. The only five-star, defensive tackle Matt Elam, opted to stay home.
- QB production isn’t bad: While the total number of prospects isn’t great, Kentucky has produced some high-end quarterbacks in Drew Barker, Kyle Bolin and Patrick Towles. Barker is the Wildcats’ current quarterback and Bolin is competing for the starting job at Louisville. Towles left UK and transferred to Boston College.
- Hotbed? If there’s anything remotely close to a hotbed, it’s Lexington, which has produced three four-star prospects in the five-year span in a metro of under 500,000 people. That wouldn’t be remarkable in Florida or Louisiana, but it stands out in the basketball state. Meanwhile, Louisville’s production has been alarmingly low.
Program to know
Louisville’s Trinity High School has been one of the state’s dominant programs with several state championships. And while the program has produced just one four-star player in recent seasons — Louisville wide receiver James Quick — it is a consistent producer of solid college talent.
