Kentucky commit Stone Saunders had a lot of family and friends with him on his visit to UK last weekend. (UK Athletics Photo)
When four-star Pennsylvania quarterback Stone Saunders verbally committed to Kentucky in August his enormous connections/ties to then UK offensive coordinator Liam Coen played a big role in his decision.
He had at least 25 other college scholarship offers, including Georgia and Michigan.
While some wondered if Saunders might de-commit after Coen left UK again for the NFL but publicly he has never wavered. Saunders was not only back on the Kentucky campus last week but he had 13 guests with him.
Saunders admitted it was a “fun group” that he brought to Lexington with him.
“It was my family which is seven (people) and then my sister’s boyfriend, grandparents and then dad’s long-time friend and mom’s long-time friend,” Saunders said. “The coaching staff had a good time with all of them.”
Saunders will enter his senior season with over 10,000 passing yards and 150 touchdowns. Bishop McDevitt High School reached the Class 4A semifinals in 2023 when he completed 213 of 329 passes for 3,522 yards and 56 touchdowns with only five interceptions. He also ran for three scores.
In 2022 he was the Pennsylvania Gatorade Player of the Year when McDevitt went 13-1 and won the Class 4A title. He was 195 of 284 passing for 3,538 yards and 54 touchdowns, including five in the state title game, with five interceptions. He ran for one score.
His freshman season his team went 12-2 and lost in the state title game. He was 146 of 230 passing for 3,037 yards and 46 scores with five interceptions.
New Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan would love to keep Saunders on the UK commit list and it sure seems like that is going to happen based on what the quarterback said about Hamdan after his weekend visit.
“He’s a great guy. By far the most straight forward person I’ve met in this whole recruiting thing which is all you can ask for now with everything in college,” Saunders said.
2 Responses
The “most straightforward” – that’s all I need to hear to add a big “+” to the new UK OC. I’m waiting until after a few games before giving much genuine thought about UK this fall, & then wait until after 5 games to see the Professor’s analysis of the team efficiency on both sides of the ball before really deciding on how well the OC is doing – which is also the time we will know golf Stoops has untied his OC and let him run the offense instead of choking him.
Time will tell. No amount of opinions mean a hoot before the season – we should know that after the last 2 letdowns.
We have 2 good quarterbacks coming in next year. It should be a great quarterback competition. Saunders and Ward. This is going to be a good problem to have. I don’t think Boley has the arm everyone thought he would have. I think whoever wins the starting job out of this group will be the man for 3-4 years. I wasn’t saying Holey isn’t a great quarterback because he could get in the gym and get a little more strong. I also believe if Brock has a great year like I think he will, he might only he here a year. Maybe Gavin starts next year. Then one of these 3 start the following year. Unless one of them can beat out Gavin but I don’t think that happens. Its good to watch your first year in college football and get your body ready to actually compete.