How the Kentucky Football Recruiting Budget Compares to the SEC

Recruiting is the lifeblood of every college football program. It’s exactly why Mark Stoops received a contract extension following a 2-10 debut at Kentucky. He has since recruited the highest-ranked class in Kentucky football history three different times, most recently breaking a personal record by signing the No. 17 class in 2022. That group had ten four-star talents and six players who logged starts as true freshmen.

Kentucky football is keeping up with the Joneses on the recruiting trail with fewer resources than the foes it faces on the gridiron.

USA Today recently received the spending records for every public university in the Power Five over the last six years. During that timeframe Kentucky football spent $4,218,563 on recruiting, an average of just over $703,000 per year. That ranks No. 30 out of 52 teams in the USA Today survey.

Those numbers are slightly skewed. Faced with recruiting restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kentucky was one of 18 Power Five schools that spent less than $200,000 on its recruiting budget in 2021, the same year the Cats recruited Dane Key, Deone Walker and Co. to Lexington.

Prior to the pandemic, Kentucky was spending like its SEC counterparts. Mark Stoops’ recruiting staff spent $1.03 million on recruiting in 2019. That still ranked eighth in the SEC.

What it Means for Kentucky Football Recruiting

It’s abundantly clear that in the SEC, it just means more money is spent on recruiting than anywhere else. That does not always directly lead to success. Only Georgia and Alabama have spent more on football recruiting than Tennessee over the last six years. The Vols did not get a Top 10 recruiting class until after Jeremy Pruitt and his staff were ousted for committing 18 Level I recruiting violations.

You do not need money in the recruiting budget to win recruiting battles. Kentucky’s highest-ranked recruiting class in school history was signed after it spent the least amount of money over the six-year period studied by USA Today. That is even more true now in the world of NIL that operates separately from the athletic department’s budget.

Power Five programs do not necessarily need to out-spend one another to be successful, but you need to have enough resources to be on the same playing field as your competition. Kentucky appears to be keeping pace with the rest of the SEC.

[USA Today Power Five College Football Recruiting Data]