Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images
By Chris Marler
We continue our series of positivity about one thing we aren’t talking about enough for each SEC team. Today we travel to Lexington to talk about the Kentucky Wildcats.
The Power 4 Talent and Experience from the Portal
There are a lot of obstacles in Kentucky’s path to be competitive in year one of the Will Stein era. Stein is an offensive coach that was the OC at Oregon before being named the head coach at Kentucky this past offseason. With a new coach comes new hope. It also comes with a reinvigorated effort and excitement for funding and resources.
The start of a new coach is often tethered to an increase in funding to help ensure a new coach can hit the ground running. However, at Kentucky that wasn’t really expected. That’s partially because of the absurd level of spending they had already used this calendar year for the basketball team. Mark Pope’s roster was reportedly worth $22 million in NIL contracts for just last year alone. It would be shocking if Kentucky pivoted to allocate more to football considering it’s the second most important sport on campus and amongst the fanbase.
You’d be wrong though.
Anonymous Coach Comments on Kentucky in Athlon Sports CFB Magazine
“It’ll be interesting to see [Will Stein] going from one of the haves to one of the have-nots and how that’s going to transition while still not losing your enthusiasm, your connection with the players and all of… pic.twitter.com/pP2qD8MRrG
— SEC Mike (@MichaelWBratton) May 19, 2026
Kentucky’s roster salary hasn’t been made public, and their valuation as a whole for NIL contracts amongst the 105 man roster aren’t nearly as much as others in the conference. Still, they went into the transfer portal and made themselves a major contender for some of the top players available this offseason.
In total Kentucky brought in 29 players. Of those 29, 20 were former Power Four players and 14 were from the SEC. The Wildcats weren’t scraping the bottom of the transfer portal barrel or looking for diamonds in the rough from the G6 level. They brought in a four star quarterback from Notre Dame. They brought in a former five star offensive tackle that started at Tennessee last year, and they brought in a top 20 player in last year’s portal at wide receiver in Nic Anderson from LSU.
When the dust settled, they finished with the No. 10 class in the 247Sports Team Transfer Portal Rankings. Most of that is because of the experienced and talented players they were able to bring in from the highest level of FBS football. That is something we aren’t talking enough about heading into the 2026 season.
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