Preston Bowman (UK Athletics Photo)
Kentucky football continued its June recruiting roll by getting verbal commitments from Oho receiver Preston Bowman and Georgia cornerback DeMarcus Gardner Saturday.
Both made official visits to Lexington this month and obviously liked what they saw and heard.
Bowman got his scholarship offer about two years ago but impressed UK coaches even more at camp this month. He said UK head coach Mark Stoops, recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow, receivers coach Daniel Shorts and offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan all were involved in his recruitment.
The 6-0, 190-pound Bowman caught 43 passes for 713 yards and nine scores last season and is also a sprinter on the track team.
The 6-0, 170-pound Gardner had been committed to Central Florida but UK co-defensive coordinator Chris Collins convinced him to flip to the Wildcats.
Gardner is also a track athlete and is ranked as the nation’s 58th best safety by 247Sports while On3 has him as the nation’s 655 best player overall. He caught 33 passes for 793 yards and 11 touchdowns last season and had 22 tackles, seven pass breakups and three interceptions according to MaxPreps.
Gardner’s offer list included Arkansas State, East Carolina, Georgia State, Jacksonville State, Minnesota, SMU, UAB, Central Florida and South Florida.
Earlier last week another Georgia cornerback, Andrew Purcell, also committed to Kentucky.
2 Responses
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate winning seasons and bowl games but we are going to have to win recruiting battles against the likes of OSU, ND, BAMA, ..etc to enter the upper quartile of the SEC. As a comparative Ole Miss seems to be doing just that.
We are constantly in recruiting battles with Michigan, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Notre Dame, Florida, Ohio State. We always get about 4 kids out of the 8 that are lower recruits. Marrow has an eye for talent. Look at Josh Allen.