Vince Marrow says Danielle Braswell will take recruiting "to another level"

Kentucky football made an impressive below-the-surface recruiting move this offseason, hiring Texas A&M staff member Danielle Braswell as the program’s executive director of recruiting. It’s a move that came after the Aggies secured the No. 1 recruiting class in 2022, securing nine five-star signees, five more than the next highest schools in Alabama and Georgia.

After solidifying herself as an on-campus recruiting guru at A&M, Mark Stoops found a way to bring her to Lexington to help with Kentucky’s efforts starting in April. It didn’t take long for her presence to be felt, with Vince Marrow — who certainly knows a thing or two about recruiting — singling her out as a difference-maker for the program.

“She’s a young African-American lady who is very sharp,” Marrow said on KSR this morning. “I mean, A&M did not want to lose her.”

At Texas A&M, Braswell was tasked with planning and organizing all logistics associated with official and unofficial visits by prospective student-athletes and their guests, along with directing all game-day recruiting efforts. Now, she’ll be handling Kentucky’s on-campus recruiting, with Marrow’s expectations extremely high for the new staff member.

“She’s really going to take our on-campus recruiting, some things and ideas she’s got now, to another level,” Marrow added.

There’s a prior connection that helped lead Braswell to Kentucky. Former wide receivers coach Michael Smith, now at South Alabama, was with Braswell at Arkansas before he came to Lexington in 2018. When she interviewed with Kentucky this offseason, Marrow called up Smith, who raved about the recruiting aficionado.

“She was with ‘Smitty,’ coach Michael Smith, at Arkansas,” Marrow told KSR. “I didn’t know if she was going to take the job, so I FaceTimed Smitty. As soon as Smitty saw her with me, he’s like, ‘Big Dawg, that’s who you need to be with.’ That was before we even said anything, because he figured that we were interviewing. Smitty spoke very highly of her.”

Fast forward one month, and she’s now taking Lexington by storm alongside Marrow — and she’s meeting some heavy-hitters in the process.

“She was with me last night, we were together last night,” he added. “She got to meet Worldwide Wes — that’s who I was with last night.”

Braswell graduated from Auburn in 2012 and served as the athletics department’s recruiting operations assistant from 2012-14, then became an athletic recruiter’s advisor for the Tigers in 2015. After stops at Arkansas and Texas A&M, Braswell is now ready to take Kentucky’s recruiting efforts to the next level.