How do you make a good football team? With good football players. Kentucky rattled off a couple of losing teams at the end of the Mark Stoops era, and now Vince Marrow is bringing a bunch of those players to Louisville.
On Thursday, wide receiver Montavin Quisenberry became the latest former Cat to transfer to Louisville. Jeff Brohm wasn’t sold on the undersized wide receiver when he earned Mr. Football honors at Boyle County. Now that Marrow’s in town, the door is open for Quisenberry at Louisville.
Quisenberry is not alone. On3’s Pete Nakos logged a prediction for Hardley Gilmore to make the move from Kentucky to Louisville. Unlike Quisenberry, who caught one pass during his redshirt 2025 campaign, Gilmore has a decent amount on his resume. He caught 34 passes for 466 yards and two touchdowns during his two-year run in Lexington, one that included a spring practice at Nebraska.
If Gilmore is the next to join Louisville’s transfer portal class, he will become the sixth player who either played for Kentucky or was committed to the Wildcats to make the move to Floyd Street. That means 40% of UofL’s newcomers are coming from a program that went 9-15 over the last two seasons and lost to Louisville by a combined score of 82-14. Sounds like a winning strategy to me.
Don’t get me wrong. Guys like Marquise Davis and Jerod Smith are talented players who could shine in the right setting. The sum does not always equal the parts.
This is also how the transfer portal game works. Coaches use their connections at former schools to build rosters at their new school. Jordan Castell probably would not be transferring to Kentucky if he did not play for Jay Bateman at Florida.
With all of those caveats out of the way, it’s very amusing to see Vince Marrow do the Vince Marrow thing at Louisville. He was a high-volume recruiter for more than a decade at Kentucky. His guys played a big role in the Wildcats’ success. They also didn’t help Kentucky win games at the end of the Mark Stoops era. Now, Louisville is going to try that same winning formula with the Little Pup. Good luck!