{"id":16638,"date":"2025-12-06T01:24:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=668103"},"modified":"2025-12-06T01:24:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:54:43","slug":"kentucky-lands-major-recruiting-victory-as-4-star-wr-kenny-darby-flips-from-lsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/football\/kentucky-lands-major-recruiting-victory-as-4-star-wr-kenny-darby-flips-from-lsu\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky lands major recruiting victory as 4-star WR Kenny Darby flips from LSU"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"146\" data-end=\"429\">Kentucky football has pulled off one of its biggest early recruiting wins of the offseason, landing <strong data-start=\"246\" data-end=\"282\">4-star wide receiver Kenny Darby<\/strong>, who announced his commitment to the Wildcats during a Friday ceremony. Darby is expected to make it official during the <strong data-start=\"404\" data-end=\"428\">early signing period<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"431\" data-end=\"721\">Darby, who was previously committed to LSU, becomes one of the highest-rated wide receivers to ever choose Kentucky. His flip appears closely tied to former LSU offensive coordinator <strong data-start=\"614\" data-end=\"627\">Joe Sloan<\/strong>, who is expected to take the same role on new head coach <strong data-start=\"685\" data-end=\"701\">Will Stein\u2019s<\/strong> staff in Lexington.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"723\" data-end=\"1060\">A <strong data-start=\"725\" data-end=\"753\">consensus 4-star recruit<\/strong>, Darby is ranked <strong data-start=\"771\" data-end=\"793\">No. 203 nationally<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"795\" data-end=\"826\">No. 27 among wide receivers<\/strong>, and <strong data-start=\"832\" data-end=\"854\">No. 9 in Louisiana<\/strong>, according to 247Sports. The 6-foot, 175-pound pass-catcher from Airline High School (LA) held offers from major programs including <strong data-start=\"987\" data-end=\"1059\">Alabama, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Florida State<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1062\" data-end=\"1373\">For Stein\u2014who has barely completed his first week as Kentucky\u2019s head coach\u2014this is a statement victory on the recruiting trail. Adding a nationally ranked receiver with SEC-ready talent gives the Wildcats a significant boost heading into what promises to be a very busy offseason of roster and staff rebuilding.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1375\" data-end=\"1552\">This commitment sets the tone for the new era of Kentucky football and signals that Stein and his incoming staff intend to aggressively compete for top-tier talent from day one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kentucky football has pulled off one of its biggest early recruiting wins of the offseason, landing 4-star wide receiver Kenny\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":37473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}