Vince Marrow: NIL isn't the only thing winning recruiting battles

It has been just over three years since the NCAA opened the floodgates for players to earn money based on their Name, Image, and Likeness. There’s consistently been one lingering question around Big Blue Nation, “How is Kentucky’s NIL situation?”

In a pay-for-play world, NIL provides exactly zero clarity on the size of budgets at specific schools. It makes for entertaining offseasons as fans blame NIL for recruiting losses and coaches publicly voice their concerns over the practice.

Last week a story with the Cats Pause caused quite a stir around the Kentucky fanbase. Mark Stoops said he felt “isolated” while fundraising to meet Kentucky’s NIL demands. “I can’t coach the way I want to coach because all I do is raise money or try to raise money,” Stoops said.

The Kentucky head coach did his best to put out those fires at the Lexington Kickoff Luncheon by praising the continuity and leadership of the UK administration. Vince Marrow received a platform to chime in on Kentucky’s NIL situation. The Wildcats’ lead recruiter told 1 Star Recruits that NIL isn’t the final determining factor when a Blue Chip player chooses his future school.

“I think the big thing people don’t understand, and that’s where recruiting comes in, is it still comes down to relationships. It comes down to, do parents trust you? Does the kid trust you? Now, are we competitive in NIL? Yes, but I can say we have a lot of guys on this roster, high school and transfer portal, that other schools offered way more. It was just the sell, trusting the person,” Marrow said.

Like any wise college football coach, Marrow did not waste an opportunity to share that he would love more NIL money in the collective coffers, but he commended his bosses for giving him an opportunity to succeed on the recruiting trail.

“I gotta say, our administration has been pretty good helping us out, supporting us. Our fanbase, our donors have really been good, but we can always use more. I’m the type of guy, I’m always going to go out and battle.

“I think people believe once you got the portal and NIL, everybody can just give guys money and you’re going to get the guy. That’s not the case. You still gotta recruit. You still gotta be the guy that can go sit in their living room, meet with their parents or sit down with the student-athlete and tell them what your message is. And you gotta have people from the past they can do some reference checks on. ‘Is this guy really who he is?’ That’s been really good for me and Mark in the fact that people from the past have always said, ‘What these guys say, they mean.'”

Marrow has had an excellent offseason on the recruiting trail. The Wildcats’ Top 25 class has four Top 200 players and Marrow was the primary recruiter for each player.

Marrow Confident Entering Preseason Practice

Nobody would ever accuse Vince Marrow of being a pessimistic person. The Kentucky associate head coach has been Mark Stoops’ righthand man for 12 years and never hesitates to put the program on a pedestal. He believes the roster is as good as it has ever been, even though he does have some questions about one position in particular.

“We’re close. I’ll say, I’ve been here the same time as Mark and this is probably the best talent we’ve had in every room,” he said on the podcast.

“If I had to say where there are some questions, it’ll probably be running back, but I think Chip Trayanum is a hell of a running back. That’s why I went after him. Just pull up those two Michigan games and he was averaging six, seven yards a pop. I don’t know why they didn’t stay with him because they probably would’ve won the game. So I think we’re close. This is the most depth at every position we’ve had. Even the quarterback room is very good. I’m optimistic, excited. We’re looking forward to the challenge. We love people not paying attention to us when we come in and do what we do.”

He added, “We just gotta make the plays when it’s on the line. It’s not like we’re out of it. We gotta make the plays. If it’s third and five, we gotta make that play and I think we got the guys to do that right now.”