Mark Stoops shares how recruiting approach has changed in his career

College football recruiting was difficult already, then then came the Transfer Portal and the NIL frontier. So now, roster-building is total lawlessness. Which makes the jobs of these collegiate head coaches much, much tougher. Particularly in the SEC, where a coach like Mark Stoops at a team like Kentucky is wheezing for air after a ridiculously busy December. In one month, Kentucky finished its regular season, signed the 2023 recruiting class, lost and gained a number of guys in the Transfer Portal and had to sort out its NIL issues amidst all the roster-building.

Stoops is just one of many head coaches struggling to keep up with the new world of college football recruiting. According to Stoops, he views recruiting entirely different now under the new rules. Whereas programs built through grass roots recruiting, now teams have more avenues of acquiring talent.

For Stoops, he attacks recruiting the portal and high school athletes with the goal of acquiring the best possible talent where the team needs it. Whether that’s finding impact blue-chip freshmen, grabbing instant starters in the portal, or signing guys who will develop into pillars of the program over the course of a few years. There are more nooks and crannies to look in for players, and Mark Stoops is making sure his program has its sights on all forms of acquiring talent.

Here he was this week, ahead of the Music City Bowl, explaining how he’s handled recruiting in the new age:

Mark Stoops on the evolving world of recruiting

“Well I think, clearly, the talent threshold, you know, it always has to be what we want it to be to go into the SEC. And as we keep on competing and, you know, building the program, I think maybe that talent threshold, we try to keep on elevating. And I believe we’ve done that. You know, when you look at classes and you put it together and, when it’s all said and done, if you get some impact guys like we did a year ago.

“It’s not always the the highly ranked guys. But when you get some impact guys out of that…you know, that’s how you you build a program. Just stacking it. With this portal, it just is a different world right now. You’re going to lose some guys, you’re going to gain some guys. But it helps when you address specific needs. And again, I feel very confident that we hit on some guys, some areas, and some proven players where we needed some help.”

This year’s recruiting class isn’t quite what last year’s was — where Kentucky signed its best class of the century, which included half-a-dozen guys who became starters or rotation-level players by the end of the year. 2023’s group may not pack that punch, but it has future playmakers, no doubt.