By ASHLEY SCOBY

Kentucky defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot said UK had a “vision to sell, and we went out there and sold it” to recruits in a short amount of time. New coach Mark Stoops and his staff signed UK’s highest rated recruiting class that included eight players with a four-star rating from at least one recruiting service. Eliot, who worked under Stoops at Florida State, made his first two recruiting visits to Franklin County receiver Ryan Timmons and Trinity defensive end Jason Hatcher — and both signed with UK.

“For us to be successful, we’ve got to make sure that those great players within the state stay in the state. I’m coming from Florida State and a big part of our program is built on Florida kids. Even though there may be more of them, it was still the core of our team. If we could do that here at Kentucky, we’ll be successful,” Eliot said.

Here’s more of what the first-time defensive coordinator had to say about recruiting and the program.

On target areas for the program…
Eliot: “The first thing that I did before I started the evaluation process of our recruits was I watched video of every single player on the team. I had the graduate assistants make a cut-up, whether it was just from practice from the guys that didn’t play in any games, or if it was just a small amount of action the players got in games. I watched every single defensive player on our team, and then developed what our needs were to fit our scheme for our defense.”

On what he saw in those tapes…
Eliot: “Like coach Stoops touched on, our philosophy is that we want to be big up front and be extremely athletic. So we had an emphasis on recruiting defensive linemen and fast skill players. That was our emphasis.”

On transitioning from being a position coach to defensive coordinator…
Eliot: “Fortunately I kind of got my training wheels the last two games at Florida State because I was the defensive coordinator there for the last two games. I’m excited about it.”

On competing for in-state recruits with schools like Ohio State, USC and Florida…
Eliot: “I think that it shows that they see the potential within their own state. What I’ve found with recruiting Jason Hatcher was that he wanted to go to Kentucky. He wanted to believe in the program. When we were available to convince him of what we’re going to do, then that helped him jump on board with us. I think with the future players within our state, they’ll feel the same way.”

On ease of converting a program from 3-4 to 4-3 defense…
Eliot: “We’ll need some time to develop some of the techniques up front for that transformation but it shouldn’t take long. And we’re going to be more multiple than you may realize as well.  At Florida State, you could tell we had some injuries. We were running 3-4 schemes quite often.”

On excitement of actually getting on the field after the recruiting process…
Eliot: “I’m very excited for that process. It’s an opportunity and a part of my coaching career that I’m really looking forward to.”

On importance of bringing in junior-college recruits to increase the “maturity” of the team…
Eliot: “At certain positions, we felt like we needed some veteran players and that’s why we recruited junior-college players at those positions.”

On if this class will send a message to future recruits…
Eliot: “It says a lot. Ryan and Jason — they both are Kentucky proud. I think that when we were able to show them our plan to be successful, they felt good about staying and going to Kentucky.”

On what the last couple of months have been like…
Eliot: “It has been very interesting because I was the defensive coordinator at the Orange Bowl. I took the job, came here and recruited for two weeks, then went back and coached for Florida State for two weeks. I prepared the game plan and practices and then called the game in the Orange Bowl and then came right back here and started recruiting again. It has been interesting to say the least but it’s been exciting and I’m looking forward to the future.”

On the current UK players he’s excited to work with…
Eliot: “Alvin Dupree is a very good player. I recruited him at Florida State, so I’ve known about him for quite a while. There’s a handful of guys I’ve been really impressed with and the rest of them have a clean slate with me. They have an opportunity to prove to me what they can do.”

On how his recruiting style connects so well with players…
Eliot: “I think that a lot of these players these days want to play for somebody that has a passion for what they’re doing and somebody that can motivate them day in and day out and is enthusiastic and energetic.”

On the deciding factor to jump from Florida State to Kentucky…
Eliot: “Well I believe in coach Stoops and I believe in what he’s doing. I see the potential that the University of Kentucky has, being in the best conference in college football. Also the commitment that the university’s making towards facilities and other avenues.

On how much he used the prospect of playing in the SEC on the recruiting trail…
Eliot: “Tremendous amount. I think all SEC schools sell their conference as much as they can. When I was at Florida State, that was something I was always battling – defending the ACC and battling the SEC.

On recruiting guys to UK that he had previously recruited to Florida State…
Eliot: “Alvonte Bell we were recruiting at Florida State, and he stayed with his commitment to us. There were some other players that we visited with as well. For the most part, we wanted to start fresh when we got here. We wanted to bring in some of the guys that we thought would fit our system offensively and defensively. Those are most of the guys we signed.
“One of the biggest things in recruiting is relationship-building. If I had a good relationship with them, it wasn’t that big of a deal. When I walk into their home, it’s more of a high-five than it was ‘Hey, why do you have a different sales pitch?’

On using the prospect of immediate playing time in recruiting…
Eliot: “We always sell the opportunity that you’ll have to play, but we never guarantee anybody playing time. That wouldn’t be fair to the players that are on our team. But we definitely sold that opportunity. Like coach Stoops touched on, you’ll only be 15 practices behind  the rest of the team, as oppose to going somewhere else where they’ve been implementing a game plan and a scheme for four or five years.”

On if the staff will have to use the upcoming season’s results to recruit in the future…
Eliot: “I think we’ll recruit on what we do next year but we’ll still be able to draw on our track record and what we’ve done in the past.”

On Lexington…
Eliot: “I love it. It’s a wonderful town. My wife and kids are moving here on Friday and we’re looking forward to it. It’s a great community and we’re very excited.

On his style of defense and its ability to work in the SEC…
Eliot: “Fortunately at Florida State, we were very good at stopping the run and I know for the most part, this is a run-oriented conference. I think when we apply those principles, we’ll be successful.”

On making the state of Florida a priority in recruiting…
Eliot: “It’s a very talented area. One thing some people may not realize too is it’s a very highly-populated area. That’s a big reason why there are so many prospects that come out of there. Seventeen to 20 million people live in that state. It was a place that we knew that we could recruit because of our relationships, but it was a place that we also knew had a lot of good players there.

On importance of Florida ties…
Eliot: “Initially the ties were very important because when we gathered and started evaluating players, I called five or six people I knew in the state of Florida and said, ‘Hey, tell me who some good players are’ that maybe I didn’t know about at Florida State. We were able to gather a list pretty quickly of great players we could get on that we knew could fit our needs and start recruiting them right away. But it’s because of those relationships that we had that we could get that information.”

On how many of the signees came from Elliott finding out about them from his connections in Florida…
Eliot: “Quite a bit of them. The entire coaching staff was able to talk to the people that they had relationships with and quite a bit of our signing class came from those initial conversations.”

On 50 percent of the signing class coming from the state of Florida…
Eliot: “I think that players in the state of Florida really do appreciate the SEC and when they have an opportunity to come play in it, they’re going to jump on it.”