Four-star 2014 prospect Drew Barker says he’ll play his college football at  Kentucky.  Barker, a quarterback from Hebron, Kentucky, made the announcement just moments ago. Barker’s decision came down to Kentucky or South Carolina, with Tennessee also in the mix (those three hats were on the table) and even some whispers about Ohio State.  Regardless, Barker says he’s headed to Lexington and that’s good news for coach Mark Stoops.

Kentucky had made Barker its No. 1 priority since Stoops was hired as coach.  He’s considered a top contender for Mr. Football in Kentucky next season.

Auburn needed to land a commitment from someone like Tre Williams.

The nation’s No. 2 outside linebacker according to Rivals announced his commitment to the Tigers on Wednesday. He chose Auburn over Alabama, Florida and Ole Miss.

Auburn has been looking for a player like Williams to help breathe some life into the Tigers’ 2014 class. He’s the first high-profile pledge in the class, which currently has five commitments.

He also gives Auburn a nice win in Mobile, Ala., a city that is critical in recruiting for both Auburn and rival Alabama. Credit for landing Williams goes to Auburn co-offensive coordinator Dameyune Craig, a Mobile native who played quarterback at Auburn from 1994-97.

“My family knows Coach Craig well, I’ve known since day one I’d be playing for him,” Williams told Rivals. “He tells me everything, he tells it how it is from bad to good. The good outweighed the bad and he’s real. Ever since I told my family I was going to commit, they are thrilled with Auburn.”

And Auburn’s coaches will be thrilled to sell Williams’ commitment to other recruits.

The SEC has reached a level of competition in recruiting we’ve never seen before. Eleven of the top 26 classes in the country for 2014 are in the SEC. Auburn is ranked No. 22, which is good for eighth best in the conference.

The Tigers will need to land more players like Williams if it wants to stay competitive in the SEC. There’s reason for Auburn fans to hope that will happen.

Auburn landed several highly-touted prospects late in the 2013 recruiting class, including defensive tackles Montravius Adams and Ben Bradley and defensive end Elijah Daniel.

But Auburn will have to focus on keeping the commitment of Williams, who will continue to hear from other schools, including Alabama.

Kevin Scarbinsky of the Birmingham News recently compared Williams to a highly-touted 2012 prospect from Mobile, running back T.J. Yeldon.

Yeldon, who was ranked the nation’s No. 2 running back by Rivals, committed to Auburn early in the recruiting process. As Mr. Scarbinsky writes, there was plenty of excitement in Auburn when the Tigers landed Yeldon’s commitment.

“Williams might be the biggest name from the Mobile area to commit to Auburn since Yeldon. How did that turn out?

Yeldon was every bit as good as advertised, running for 1,108 yards as a true freshman. The trouble for Auburn was, he did it for Alabama after switching his commitment late in the fall of 2011 and then starting classes there in January of 2012.”

Auburn will work to make sure Williams doesn’t make the same switch. And he will surely hear from people telling him Alabama is a better choice than Auburn, especially if Alabama has another successful season in 2013.

Linebacker Reuben Foster and defensive end Dee Liner heard the same thing during last year’s recruiting season. They both switched their commitments from Auburn and signed with Alabama.

This doesn’t mean Williams will do the same. Craig’s presence will help, and the fact Williams has two friends – offensive lineman Joshua Casher and linebacker Deshaun Davis – already committed to Auburn should be an advantage for the Tigers.

Auburn will do everything it has to do to make sure Williams stays committed and signs with the Tigers. He’s that important.

Wiggins Watch continues

The nation’s top basketball prospect is still undecided.

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1. Alabama offered 8th grader Dylan Moses a scholarship back in February.  He now has offers from eight schools, half of them in the SEC - LSU, Alabama, Ole Miss, Florida, Florida State, UCLA, Nebraska and Texas.

2. So why did linebacker Tre Williams commit to Auburn over Alabama?  ”I went to Auburn because that’s a whole family from the coaches to the fans to the players.” Williams says linebacker depth at Alabama was not a factor.  He says he was told he would inside linebacker at Auburn, but that could change.

3. Alabama’s quarterback wish list. Crimson Tide’s top five recruiting targets.

4. Missouri has added a lineman from the Kansas City area to its 2014 class.  Lee’s Summit West lineman Kevin Pendleton committed to the Tigers Wednesday night.  Pendleton’s coach is Royce Boehm, father of current Tiger lineman Evan Boehm. Pendleton is Missouri’s seventh 2014 commitment.

5. The nephew of former Georgia great Herschel Walker has committed to Clemson.  Milan Richard, from Savannah, Georgia, picked the Tigers over Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.

6. Wide receiver Demarre Kitt was once a Georgia commit but re-opened his recruiting process and now has a new top three.  The Sandy Creek (GA) prospect will decide among Clemson, Tennessee and Ohio State.

7. According to Arkansas commitment  Rafe Peavey, ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer liked what he saw from the Bolivar, Missouri quarterback last week. “Sometimes I didn’t think even think he was watching. I would throw and I would hear ‘nice ball’.”

8. Louisiana quarterback Brandon Harris has added an offer from LSU to an ever-growing list.  ”It was a little frustrating to not have it at one point to be honest. Now I have it and it feels good. In the end, Coach Cameron knows what he wants in a QB and he felt comfortable with offering me a scholarship to play quarterback at LSU.” Other SEC schools interested in the Bossier City quarterback include Auburn, Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.

Psst.  Ya know how close we are to National Signing Day 2014?  Just 39 weeks.  And that’s no time at all in the world of high-stakes college football recruiting, doncha know?

Below you’ll find an updated overview of how the SEC’s football programs are performing on the recruiting trail heading into summer.  As usual, we’ve used Rivals.com’s star ratings as out launch point.  For each star Rivals assigns, we assign a point.  But we also give a point to those players who are currently 0-star prospects according to Rivals (because their tapes have not yet been graded).

First, let’s look at sheer quantity.  The table below shows the total number of “talent points” currently committed to each SEC program.

Next, we’ll take a look at quality.  The table below shows the average points-per-commit for each SEC program.

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SEC Football

1. Linebacker Tre’ Williams says he is headed to Auburn. He made the announcement just moments ago. Along with Auburn, Williams had strongly considered Alabama.  His other finalists were Florida and Ole Miss.  The Mobile, Alabama prospect is considered one of the nation’s top inside linebacker prospects and had taken multiple visits to both Auburn and Alabama.

2. Four-star defensive back  Jamoral Graham has committed to Mississippi State.  Here’s how Newton County (MS) coach Jackie Williamson described it.  “I think he came to the realization that he was comfortable at Mississippi State. He felt really comfortable with (safeties coach) Tony Hughes and felt like he was a guy that he could play for.” Graham is Mississippi State’s second verbal commitment in the class of 2014.

3. Alabama coach Nick Saban thinks so highly of Calera, Alabama prospect Ronnie Clark, he called him from the NFL draft.  Projected to play free safety and quarterback this fall, Clark is expected to choose between Alabama and Auburn but he’s drawing attention from programs and coaches all over the country, including Vanderbilt coach James Franklin.  ”Coach Franklin is a good guy,” Clark said. “Real good guy. I believe they are going to turn the program around at Vanderbilt.”

4. Auburn’s top five defensive line recruiting targets include Da’Shawn Hand.  The Virginia lineman visited Auburn last weekend.

5. Razorbacks expected to get visit from top-1oo prospect  - safety Steven Parker from Oklahoma.

6. Linebacker Sharieff Rhaheed is an LSU commitment.  Arkansas linebackers coach Randy Shannon visited his school on Monday.

7. Broadarius Hamm is a 6-foot-3, 290-pound defensive lineman from Georgia and wears a size 18 shoe.  He’s 15 years old and is reportedly drawing interest from the home-state Bulldogs.

SEC Basketball

8. Top prospect Andrew Wiggins could reportedly make his decision soon. Kentucky is one of four schools still in the mix for the Huntington Prep star. Louisville is not one of the four schools Wiggins is weighing, but it’s the one his host mom at Huntington Prep prefers. “If it was my choice, I’d say he should go to Louisville...I love Coach Pitino’s program.”

9. 2014 prospect Trey Lyles. “I have six top schools: UCLA, Butler, Florida, Kentucky, Duke and Louisville and all of those schools are ones that I’m really looking at.”

10. The final scholarship at Ole Miss will go to Jerron Martin.  The Maryland point guard committed after taking an official visit to Ole Miss last weekend. He used the social media network Vine to make the announcement.

11. The New Orleans Times Picayune ranks the top 16 2014 prospects in the state.

Florida State linebacker signee Matthew Thomas from Booker T. Washington High School in Miami is seeking a release from his national letter of intent.

Thomas, ranked the nation’s No. 2 outside linebacker in the 2013 class by Rivals, signed with Florida State on Feb. 6. He had originally planned to sign with Southern California but ultimately chose Florida State after his mother refused to sign off on USC.

“We couldn’t agree, but it’s my mom, I just did what I had to do,” Thomas told Noles247.com at the time.

Thomas has since changed his mind. He told the Miami Herald he recently informed Florida State’s coaching staff that he would like a release so he can sign with Georgia or USC.

Thomas said Florida State’s coaches don’t want to release him and plan to visit Miami soon to try to convince him to stick with the Seminoles. If Thomas chooses to attend another school without a release from Florida State, he would have to sit out one full academic year that would count against his five-year window of eligibility.

Thomas told the Herald he wants out of his letter of intent because he prefers to attend a college outside the state of Florida.

“I’ve been in Miami all my life,” he said. “Georgia needs linebackers. It’s a big program. I have family in Georgia. USC, growing up I never thought I would have an opportunity that big. I just want to go have fun and play football.”

Thomas’ situation is the reason I wrote last week that high-profile players should avoid signing a national letter of intent. The letter does very little to help athletes while providing all the power to schools.

A school isn’t even required to guarantee the athlete a spot on the team when he signs the letter of intent. It just agrees to provide financial aid to the athlete.

Thomas could have signed a financial aid agreement with Florida State while leaving himself the flexibility to attend another school. Instead, his future is in the hands of coaches who have the authority to penalize him if he doesn’t attend Florida State.

The SEC announced its new network on Thursday in a big way because the league wanted to make it a big deal.

And it is a big deal. It’s big in terms of money, impact and attention the league will receive.

It will also be beneficial in recruiting.

Prospects already know the SEC is the strongest conference in college football. They’ve seen it win the most BCS championships (seven straight) and produce the most NFL draft picks (63 this year, more than double the next highest conference).

Recruits also know ESPN. It’s their No. 1 option when it comes to sports viewing. And while Fox Sports 1 is on the way and CBS and NBC continue to grow television options to challenge ESPN, the truth is the Worldwide Leader will continue to be No. 1 for the foreseeable future.

So with ESPN and the SEC extending their relationship to 2034, that should should only create opportunities for the league to sell itself to the best prospects in the Southeast and nation.

“It’s all about exposure and (the SEC network gives us) more exposure in the footprint of our 11 states in the Southeast,” Florida coach Will Muschamp said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Of course, we target the Southeast and Texas pretty hard, as far as our recruiting is concerned, as well as doing some national recruiting. The more exposure you get, the better it’s going to be for recruiting obviously, and also your fan base.”

It also helps that the SEC already has a strong lead in recruiting against the rest of the country. The conference finished with five of the top 10 and 10 of the top 25 teams in the 2013 class rankings by Rivals.

The SEC already has five of the top 10 teams listed in the 2014 class rankings. That doesn’t include Alabama, which is ranked No. 17 and will surely climb when the commitments start to roll in for the Crimson Tide.

But the SEC still has room to grow in terms of talent. Schools like Ole Miss and Vanderbilt are recruiting at higher levels than we’ve ever seen and Tennessee, a once dominant recruiter in the SEC, is beginning to have success again on the recruiting trail.

And all 14 schools in the SEC plan to use the conference’s new network, which won’t launch until August 2014, as part of their sales pitch to prospects.

“We’ve had our own network at CBS and several games on ESPN,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “We had a great partnership with them. And now we’re going to improve on that. It’s going to be even better in the future.”

It’s hard to argue against Saban. The SEC had 12 prospects selected in the first round of the NFL draft last week. Who says that record won’t be broken in the future?

With Texas A&M’s early success in the SEC and big plans for the future, expect prospects from one of the country’s most talent-rich states to show more interest in playing in the SEC. Especially when they all have more access to watch the SEC in football and other sports.

As Georgia coach Mark Richt said Thursday, the impact of the SEC network is “going to be huge, really.” And he’s right.

Tennessee lands a big one

That’s a literal and figurative statement.

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SEC Football

1. The NCAA has suspended new rules that would have allowed unlimited electronic communication between college coaches and recruits.

2.Is Alabama vs. Georgia the top recruiting rivalry in the country?

3. Alabama has offered 2014 linebacking prospect Nyles Morgan.  The 6-2, 220 pound prospect has 31 other offers.

4. Lousiana running back Leonard Fournette is considered by many to be the top prospect in the country but right now he’s focused on track. “I’m leaving the recruiting stuff up to my parents right now. And I won’t focus on football until track season’s over.”

5. Kyle Allen is rated as the No. 5 quarterback prospect in the country in the class of 2014.  Texas A&M is after the Scottsdale, Arizona product.  ”Right now, the schools recruiting me the hardest that I’m feeling the most are probably UCLA, ASU, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M.”

6. The Aggies have offered a trio of prospects from New Orleans -  linebacker Arthur McGinnis, wide receiver Tyron Billy-Johnson and athlete Deshawn Capers-Smith. The teammates are 2015 prospects.

7. Offensive lineman Bill Weber is getting attention from several schools including Arkansas and Missouri.  The Coppell, Texas lineman attended the Razorbacks spring game with teammate and defensive end Solomon Thomas.  He came away impressed with the knowledge exhibited by Arkansas fans.  ”The fans know their stuff.”

8. Nashville wide receiver Thomas Richard became Missouri’s sixth commitment over the weekend. Heres how his high school coach described him. “As far as ball skills go, Missouri’s getting as good as they can get in the 2014 class. I’ve been fortunate to be around a lot of really good receivers, and he’s going to be up there with the top of them when his time’s up at Missouri.”

9. ESPN’s Chris Low: “Over the last three years (2010-12), nobody in the SEC has signed more ESPN 150 prospects offensively than Auburn.”

10. Alabama signee Reuben Foster on what opposing fanbases were telling him - “They told me, ‘I hope you tear your ACL,’ “

SEC Basketball

11. LSU’s incoming class rated the 9th best by ESPN, 10th best by Rivals. Here is ESPN’s final 2013 ranking of recruits.

12. Kentucky is one of four schools still chasing top prospect Andrew Wiggins.  Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News says he’s worth the wait. “On the day Wiggins steps on an NBA court, and that’ll happen sooner rather than later, he’ll become one of the greatest athletes ever to play in the league.”

13. 2014 basketball prospect Emmanuel Mudiay on an in-home visit by Kentucky coach John Calipari:  ”He does a good job with his point guards, and that’s a big part that I really look into.”

1. The SEC had plenty of success in the NFL draft. And that makes for a strong sales pitch on the recruiting trail.

2. Football prospects see pro potential at Florida after the Gators had two players selected in the first round.

3. Top running back prospect Leonard Fournette showed recently he has plenty of speed to go with his size.

4. Tennessee signee Ryan Jenkins looks back at the process of choosing between the Vols and Clemson.

5. Several SEC schools remain in contention for defensive end Jesse Aniebonam from Olney, Md.

6. Defensive back Dominique Brown from Ocala, Fla., is keeping his options open while he waits for more offers.

7. These two Louisiana basketball prospects will face off in the SEC.

It’s debated several times per year.

“Stars don’t matter,” one person will say.

“Of course they do,” another person will respond.

And away they go. It’s a common question in recruiting: how much do star rankings matter when it comes to recruiting? After all, we’ve see both 5-star recruits (Adrian Peterson) and 3-star prospects (Arian Foster) go on to shine in the NFL.

But if you look at the list of SEC players selected in the first round of the NFL draft on Thursday night, you will see a group of highly-rated prospects before they entered college. Below is the list of 12 SEC players drafted on Thursday night with each player’s Rivals.com star-rating before they arrived in college.

OL Luke Joeckel – 4
LB Barkevious Mingo – 4
CB Dee Milliner – 5
OL Chance Warmack – 3
OL D.J. Fluker – 5
DT Sheldon Richardson – 4
LB Jarvis Jones – 4
S Eric Reid – 4
DT Sharrif Floyd – 5
WR Cordarrelle Patterson – 4
LB Alec Ogletree – 4
S Matt Elam – 5

Notice a trend. Of the 12 SEC players drafted by the NFL on Thursday, 11 of them had a 4- or 5-star ranking before entering college. The one player who didn’t receive such a distinction, Warmack, was the highest-ranked three-star guard in the nation (No. 20 overall) in the 2009 class.

How about some of the SEC players who were projected as borderline first-round picks but instead will likely slip to the second round on Friday? Wide receiver Justin Hunter, running back Eddie Lacy, linebacker Kevin Minter and defensive tackle Jesse Williams were all given four-star ratings by Rivals.

This still doesn’t mean that only 4- and 5-star players are worth the time of coaches in the SEC. Just look at Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, who was rated a 3-star prospect by Rivals.

This year’s No. 1 draft pick, offensive tackle Eric Fisher, was a 2-star prospect out of high school when he signed with Central Michigan. In fact, there were more players with a 3-star rating or worse (15) drafted last night than players with a 4-star rating (12).

But why is that? It’s simply a numbers thing. There are so many more prospects each year with a 3-star rating or below than there are players with a 4- or 5-star ranking.

The 2009 signing class had only 33 5-star prospects, according to Rivals. That’s 33 5-star players out of thousands of prospects around the nation. Other services, such as ESPN RecruitingNation, give out even less 5-star rankings each year.

While a lesser amount of 5-star players might be selected in the draft each year, there is a much higher percentage compared to every other star ranking.

Six of the 30 5-star prospects in the 2008 class were drafted in the first round of the NFL draft. That’s 20 percent of the 5-star class, a ratio 3-star players and below will never come close to touching.

There’s a larger amount of 4-star players each year, but still not enough to go around for everyone.

That’s why evaluating correctly becomes critical for coaches in the SEC. Schools like Alabama, Florida, Georgia and LSU will be loaded with 4- and 5-star prospects each year. It’s the addition of players like Warmack that can help make the difference in championship runs.

Richt knows the NFL matters

Coaches will talk to prospects about everything when it comes to recruiting.

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