By LARRY VAUGHT
Getting commitments from in-state players Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno is a huge boost for Kentucky coach Mark Pope for several reasons according to Paul Biancardi, recruiting director for ESPN.
“Those are two guys who love the game and love Kentucky and that is really important. They can help Kentucky win in different ways,” said Biancardi. “Jasper is a little more polished now. Big players take longer to develop because they have less opportunities in high school. But both are going to be excellent players for Kentucky.”
Johnson is a 6-5 shooting guard and consensus top 15 player nationally who turned down North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisville and many others. Moreno is a 7-foot center who had a bevy of big-time offers before choosing Kentucky about two weeks before Johnson did.
“We don’t talk about character enough,” Biancardi said. “The ability to have character on the court is a talent. You want a certain on-court character and traits. Off the court you want integrity, respect and responsibility. But on court character traits count, too and these guys are both high character kids on and off the court.”
Sporting News columnist Mike DeCourcy believes getting commitments from both in-state players proves that Pope is an “effective” recruiter who has a lot to sell with the staff he built and all UK has to offer.
“I think what it suggests is that in a period when the future is really murky for every prospect you bring in except those that are immediate starters and stars and not knowing how long you will have this person on campus for how long before he might decide to look somewhere else is that Mark Pope can recruit,” DeCourcy said.
“Getting someone to commit to you that also has a great investment in the school is a huge bonus. If you can get a high end prospect like Jasper and get him to be a Wildcat and be on a track more like PJ Washington rather than a John Wall, then that increases the chances he will spend a second year in a UK uniform rather than seeking the transfer portal as an easy out.”
DeCourcy doesn’t think it was necessary to get both Johnson and Moreno for Pope to send a message about what he could do at UK recruiting-wise.
“If he didn’t get these two and went empty in the fall (recruiting period) maybe that would send a negative message. Jasper is a five-star player and huge recruit but if he were (Duke signee) Cooper Flagg and grew up in Paintsville or Lexington and UK missed on him, it would maybe be different. Jasper and Malachi are going to be really good players but it is not likely either will have the kind of impact Anthony Davis did.”
Moreno, the 7-foot Great Crossing center, made it clear at his commitment ceremony that he wanted Johnson to be his future teammate. Johnson, a 6-5 guard, was just as adamant about wanting to play with Moreno after making his commitment last week.
“I certainly know how good he is and what he can do down low. He is a force inside,” Johnson said. “Having him as a teammate is a really good thing. I have seen him play since we were kids. I was happy when he committed (to UK) and now we will be playing together.”
Biancardi said while Johnson is higher rated than Johnson, he likes the way Moreno continues to develop his game.
“If you are in the top 100 (players in the recruiting class), you are still a high level prospect and Moreno is,” Biancardi said. “He has excellent timing when he is blocking shots and you just cannot teach that. He has very good hands and is a very good passing big man. He can do a lot more than just score with his back to the basket and block shots.
“He’s an emerging prospect and hard worker who loves being in the gym just like Jasper does. There just are not a lot of high profile recruits in Kentucky and when you get two like this in one class, that’s really a huge plus for Kentucky.”
Kentucky has become accustomed to starting a transfer quarterback. Penn State transfer Will Levis and Georgia transfer Brock Vandagriff had played sparingly when they transferred to UK. Levis led UK to 10 wins in 2021 — before the NCAA vacated the wins — and is now a starter with the Tennessee Titans.
Devin Leary came from North Carolina State in 2023 after playing in 30 games and throwing for 62 touchdowns and about 6,700 yards before being injured midway of the 2022 season.
“When we took Will, he hadn’t thrown very many (passes). Matter of fact, don’t quote me exactly, but I could argue that there’s probably more film on Brock, than there was on Will Levis, of seeing what we’re looking at,” Stoops said before UK lost 31-6 to South Carolina. “We did put a lot of faith and confidence in Brock because we believed in him, and what we did see on film we liked.
“Again I go back to, he’s coming from a program, you know how well coached he was, and how complex they are. (When) We’re playing Georgia, they’re not just good players, they’re very well coached, and so when we were taking somebody like Brock from there, who was their backup, you saw his operation, you saw the way he was coached, you saw the way he played in high school, you felt pretty good about it.”
Vandagriff’s father, Greg, was his high school and Stoops said it is easy to tell he is a coach’s son.
“Greg, his father, is a tough guy and a high school coach and definitely instilled that in Brock and he’s wired right. There’s no doubt about that,” the UK coach said.
Vandagriff was overmatched against South Carolina. He was only 3-for-10 passing for 30 yards and had one interception returned for a touchdown. He was sacked four times and lost 29 yards on nine carries with a long run of only four yards.
Now Vandagriff has to play against No. 1 Georgia Saturday coming off a dismal performance by him and the UK offense.
“I’m sure Brock will bounce back. He’s tough, he’s resilient,” Stoops said. “He will compete, I know that. We have to do a good job of putting him in position to be successful. We’ve got to get him some time and give him something to give him an opportunity.”
Stoops would not put UK’s offensive woes on Vandagriff because of the way South Carolina “disrupted him and his comfort level” with its constant pressure.
Vandagriff felt Kentucky “beat ourselves” against South Carolina and that “everything is pretty correctable” going into the Georgia game.
“Georgia’s got a good squad. We’ve got a good squad as well, but the main thing on my mind right now is putting this game to bed,” Vandagriff said after the loss. “Make sure we get in, get our corrections, and then we’ll attack Georgia when it’s time.”
When former UK stars formed La Familia to play in The Basketball Tournament earlier this summer, UK guard Lamont Butler admitted he had patterned his game a bit after Eric Bledsoe, a player on John Calipari’s first Kentucky team.
“I know he’s a very explosive guard and it was pretty awesome to meet him. It was amazing to be chopping up with the stuff he gave me to improve on,” Butler said about Bledsoe. “He played with Chris Paul, and that’s one of my guys right there, too. So it was great to hear advice from him (Bledsoe). He told me about Chris Paul’s leadership.
“His own advice to me was really just to have fun with the whole thing this year. He said just to take the pressure off and have fun with it in the one year I do have left in college. So I want to remember that.”
Butler likes the team coach Mark Pope has assembled for a lot of reasons.
“We can shoot the lights out the ball so I think it’s gonna be really tough to beat us. We have a veteran group. We’re learning quickly and gelling quickly. So just trying to continue to get that team chemistry now,” Butler said. “It’s going at a fast pace right now learning all the new stuff that coach Pope is trying to instill.
“My role is to go out there and be a leader. I went to the championship game. Just go out there and show them how to play. I feel like that’s my main thing. I try to be aggressive and spice stuff up on defense.”
He really likes practicing against Kerr Kriisa.
“Kerr shoots the lights out. My job is to make him better every day and his job is to make me better. The deeper we are as a team, the better we are going to be,” Butler said.
Kentucky’s inept performance against South Carolina certainly brought a lot of brutal, but fair, criticism of Kentucky football and coach Mark Stoops.
“Shocking stat of the day: Since the 2021 dismantling of LSU, Kentucky has lost 8 of its last 10 SEC home games,” ESPN/SEC Network personality Tom Hart posted on X.
Kentucky football stats guru Corey Price noted that the 2-8 mark was the worst record in a stretch of 10 SEC home games since Nov. 3, 2012, to Sept. 19, 2015.
Connie Allen of Harrodsburg is a true die-hard Kentucky football fan who seldom misses a game and normally is in the tailgate lot early with her husband.
“I can’t fathom what is so broken. I like Stoops, and I know it was really the OC (offensive coordinator), but, just like a commander in the military, the ultimate responsibility is the coach/commander. UK football died today,” Allen, a former military member, messaged me after the blowout loss.
Tyler Wright, sent me this message: “Not a Kentucky fan but after everything that went on in the offseason, coupled with the results of the last two years, this seems like the type of loss that can lose you the fanbase for good.”
Based on social media, fans are more than just a little upset.
“I did watch UK-South Carolina football game today via ABC-TV. It pains me to watch how this program continues to move in such a ‘ho-hum’ pace. If it weren’t for 6-6 & 7-5 teams qualifying for mediocre bowls, there’d be little to celebrate. I have no further comment beyond that,” Oscar Combs, former Cats’ Pause publisher and long-time UK sports analyst, posted on social media after the game.
FoxSports Radio host Aaron Torres didn’t hold back on his assessment of UK football: “Maybe Mark Stoops should spend less time complaining about NIL and more time getting his team ready to play. Least prepared team I’ve seen anywhere in college football this season.”
Former Kentucky coach Rich Brooks, who did beat Georgia twice, called it an “all systems failure” by the Cats.
CatsIllustrated publisher Justin Rowland of Rivals.com noted it was a “bad day” for Kentucky football and posted on social media that it is “hard to see how you have much hope for the offense” after the play against South Carolina.
Stoops didn’t have a lot of answers after his third straight loss to South Carolina.
“We’ve been beaten, you know, pretty badly by some really good football teams. But I felt like our team always fought back,” Stoops said. “We talk about it all the time. You get punched, you get hit, you swing back. Very disappointed. Not happy with us. Our coaching, our response, the way we played.
Today it didn’t look like we were a really well coached team and a team that didn’t really want to respond. That’s 100 percent on me and on us. No excuses. They beat us in every facet and we didn’t respond. We didn’t play very good and we didn’t coach very good. We have a lot of work to do. It’s up to our team, how we respond and how we bounce back.”
Quote of the Week: “l grew up in elementary school following UK athletics and Louisville athletics was rolling at the time in basketball. Certainly, Kentucky basketball with Joe B. Hall and Eddie Sutton when I was growing up and Kenny Walker and Mel Turpin and always followed Kentucky football. Always have followed them and always enjoy going back to Kentucky,” South Carolina coach Shane Beamer on growing up in Murray.
Quote of the Week 2: “She sees the players that they have brought in and things like that getting Kentucky back and it is close to home. He brought in a lot of players with him and is trying to rebuild the program. I think she likes the coaching staff and likes the players,” Butch Jointer the interest his daughter ZaKiyah Johnson, a top five 2025 recruit, has in Kentucky and coach Kenny Brooks.
Quote of the Week 3: “He has probably been one of our most consistent wide receivers throughout camp. Runs precise routes, makes plays on the ball, is tough on the perimeter. There are so many distractions these days. You still have a couple of old school, throwback guys who just come to work every day and get that done. I would say he’s one of those guys,” Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan on receiver Fred Farrier, a former Franklin County standout.