Jarvis Strickland with UK coach Mark Stoops. (X Photo)
Paducah Tilghman coach Sean Thompson was not surprised that Jarvis Strickland, his star junior offensive lineman, wanted to go ahead and make his college choice.
The 6-6, 295-pound Strickland had a bevy of offers that included Louisville, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Maryland, Michigan, Ole Miss, Michigan State, North Carolina, Miami (Ohio), Tulane, Indiana, Nebraska, Liberty, Charlotte, Tulane and South Florida.
“It was not a huge surprise he picked Kentucky. Kentucky does a very good job in recruiting of making them feel like that is home,” said Thompson. “Coach (Vince) Marrow and coach (Mark) Stoops and even coach (Eric) Wolford just drive it home that they take care of their guys and they did that with him.
“Jarvis had so many people making that big last minute push for him knowing he wanted to commit early. Some teams slow play (recruiting) more than others. In today’s world, I think you have to be faster.”
Thompson was not sure if Strickland would follow teammate Martels Carter, the MVP of last year’s Class 4A state title game won by Tilghman, to Kentucky.
“I think he really liked Michigan a lot. We went up there during football season and it was really cold and that played a factor in his decision because for a while I would have told you he was going to Michigan,” Thompson said. “He has always had Louisville high on his list and they had a great chance. I also felt like Vanderbilt had a real chance with him.”
North Carolina and new coach Bill Belichick, former head coach of the New England Patriots, also made a late push.
“North Carolina coming in late with Belichick and having that offer I thought might slow the process down,” Thompson said. “I thought he was going to commit in early March and when it got to the end of March I thought he might change where he was going.”
Strickland is the No. 1 prospect in his recruiting class in Kentucky in the 247Sports rankings. He is ranked 203rd nationally and 17th among offensive tackles. Strickland had official visits scheduled to Kentucky (May 30th) and Vanderbilt (June 6th), according to 247 Sports, when he committed to UK Sunday.
“Kentucky is getting a very long, athletic kid whose feet are really good. His hips are much improved and his work ethic is unreal. He works very hard every day,” the Paducah Tilghman coach said.
4 Responses
Vince Marrow is one of the premier recruiters in the nation. He has teamed up exceptionally well with Stoops.
Unfortunately, Stoops has repeatedly failed as HC responsible for hiring the OC & other Assistant coaches.
Talent in the field needs a staff who is intelligent, sharp, fast-thinking to make adjustments and superior in developing players for techniques and specific needs (such as to be versatile in pass blocking AND rushing blocking.)
It’s sad that many players have not had good posturing coaches. The weakest spots are always obvious, year after year…
• Stoops being possible the absolute worst HC in hiring an OC who is great AND stays at UK. Liam Coen is now a HC in the NFL, just a couple of years after Stoops “lost” him twice! The control-freak attitude toward every OC has now caused an elevated collapse of the UK offense.
• Stoops refusing to hire a well-qualified, fully dedicated, Special Teams coach.
• Stoops botching the hiring & rehiring of the OL coach
• Allowing the Secondary coach to remain at UK after absolutely pathetic defense nearly every time an opponent face 3rd & long! It’s almost a guaranteed long gain & 1st down since the UK secondary could not keep up with a turtle as a receiver !!!
Too many holes and now the locker room simply has to be in shambles. Receivers with speed and spotty success lave left UK as if the locker room is on fire.
The past 3 year decline has brought UK down to playing like a chjoker coaches team – and that is bad.
Two heads need to roll – Stoops & BARNIE, who continues to put major UK sports programs in a bind with stupid contracts!!!
I agree and I also believe if we had another Vince marrow type recruiter on Kentucky’s staff as coordinator we would be in a much better position. It seems like Vince is the only coach on Kentucky’s team that can recruit with the big names in college football. We are one more good recruiting coordinator away from being a great football team and I’ve said this many times. Great pickup great offensive line talent but can we keep him long enough for him to develop into a good tackle in the SEC. It seems like we land the big fish but can never get them on the field early enough to produce and the way the line has played over the last 3-4 years the younger guys should have been getting reps. We are lucky to have Selm, Nave, and a couple others who could have jumped ships when they seen us sinking. I also believe this will be the best football team we have had in the last 4 years. I’m not saying we will win 10 games but I’m saying we will have better results on the field. I think once you put a college kid in the conversation of NFL boards before the year starts your in for a season full of "injuries" that don’t make sense. I’m not saying they are saving themselves for the NFL but that’s kinda what it seems like.. When you see guys like Hairston and Walker who all year everyone was talking about them being there last year you would think they would put up big numbers to see there name called on the first day but I think the worst thing you can do is make assumptions. Look at Walker for example preseason everyone was saying he would go top 10 in the draft and at one point top 5 now he has slid to late second round and I have a hard tike believing he even gets picked up then. He had a terrible season and when this happens you have to come back and prove your worth. He could have came back had the best year of his career and shot up the draft boards again but instead he is ok with being a late second early third round draft pick. He acts lazy to me. Doesn’t have any muscle tone whatsoever kinda looks skinny in the legs and fat in the upper body which is something he could have worked on going into in his junior year. Hopefully we have kids that want to win first and worry about personal accolades second. That’s the recipe for success. Alabama has had a hard time dealing with this the last couple of years. I think that’s why Saban bolted. College sports are nothing like they used to be. Players leave more than professional teams and every year you have to start almost completely over. We have good pieces back from last year so we should be good on defense and questionable on offense. I won’t believe our offense is going to be good until I see the product on the field. I don’t know if Bush is the man for the job. We shall see this year. If there isn’t significant improvement in year 2 you have to let him go. I think this is a do or die year for Stoops and his crew anyway. I think we go all in on sumrall after this year if we fail to make it to a bowl game. But if Stoops takes this team to a bowl game and we win 7 or more games he’s not going anywhere. I definitely wouldn’t give him another year extension for a music city Bowl. I do think this years team can win 8 games which probably gives us another year of Stoops so we will see. Id like to see him leave Kentucky at least at .500 winning. Because that’s what he’s been at Kentucky a .500 winner and that’s all.
Lots of solid points.
I don’t think UK can win 6 in 2025 because the program started imploding and now after 3 years of it, there is more dust in the locker room than good will. The heart has been plucked out of the UK program, and until Stoops resigns OR at a minimum publicly admits & apologizes for trashing UK FB because he was a stubborn HC who could not keep a good OC & thus ruined the entire UK offense!
He is a has-been who was rescued from an earlier collapse when Coen led the UK offense yo complement the D, resulting in 10 wins. When he left the 1st time, the curtain began to close on the Stoops act.
I was 100% in support of Stoops when he was hired and wanted to see the AD push for long term contracts for every Assiatant to establish stability. UK got better & better, but he ran off the 1st OC in a hurry and the revolving door finally crashed from over use.
He will be an albatross to UK FB just as the fraud became, if the spineless AD remains in charge of giving away lottery money.
TW….a lot of good points as usual, but we are more than 1 new recruiting coordinator from being great. Great does not seem to be in our current short term destiny especially with current staff in place. We currently bottom feeding in SEC recruiting, and it will take minimum of 2-4 yrs to turn to respectability. I do not think we have much chance of challenging in the SEC as too many competitors have improved and we have slid to the bottom. Stoops continues to be the problem and not solution.