What are the odds? UK football has become an unlikely recruiting nemesis for Michigan.

When four-star Ohio running back Marquise Davis shocked the recruiting world Wednesday by committing to Kentucky — not Michigan as expected — the Cleveland Heights High School star put a charge into UK football fans.

For Wolverines backers, the news prompted a much different reaction. As these words were written, there were 15 pages of bewilderment on the message board thread about Davis picking UK over UM on the premium board at the 24/7 Sports site “The Michigan Insider.”

The decision by Davis only continued a period of disorientation for Michigan football fans as it relates to their school’s recruiting battles with UK.

Michigan, you might recall, is the reigning college football national champion.

In the just-concluded 2024 NFL draft, the Wolverines had more players chosen (13) than any other college program.

On the list of all-time college football wins, you will find Michigan at No. 1 — with 1,004 victories.

Meanwhile, Kentucky football has produced four double-digit win seasons in its entire history.

Yet Davis was only the latest in a mini-run of players picking UK over UM.

Just last week, Michigan defensive back DJ Waller, a promising enough prospect that he played in 11 games as a true freshman last season for the eventual national champions, transferred to Kentucky.

In February, well-regarded class of 2024 Michigan linebacker signee Jaden Smith, a Charlotte, N.C., product, asked for and was granted a release from his national letter of intent — and subsequently cast his lot with UK.

Last September, twin brothers and four-star defensive line prospects Jacob and Jerod Smith (no relation to Jaden) committed to Kentucky after having decommitted from Michigan.

‘The real deal.’ Corbin gets the win and Kentucky gets the twins as No. 2 shuts out No. 1.

Meanwhile, a pair of stars from Cincinnati’s Withrow High School, class of 2024 four-star cornerback Terhyon Nichols and class of 2025 four-star wide receiver Quintin Simmons have signed/committed, respectively, to UK after both holding scholarship offers from Michigan (among many others).

For the message board contingent, at least, of the Michigan fan base, UK’s relative, recent success at wooing some football players away from the Wolverines seems to have felt a lot like hell to the victors.

“Can we get Kentucky on our schedule already?” one poster wrote on one of “The Michigan Insider” message boards after Jaden Smith flipped from Wolverine to Wildcat. “I’ve never wanted to beat down a program that doesn’t matter so bad.”

As entertaining as it is to watch confused Michigan followers trying to make sense of Kentucky’s run of recruiting success vs. the Wolverines, it’s good to keep some things in perspective.

Down the stretch of the 2023 recruiting cycle, UK and Michigan went head-to-head on five different prospects — Cincinnati DB Cameron Calhoun; Phenix City, Ala., wideout Karmello English; Kanakee, Ill., defensive back Jyaire Hill; and Youngstown, Ohio, products Jason Hewlett, an outside linebacker, and Waller.

The Wolverines won every one of those head-to-head showdowns, although, in the case of the transferring Waller, Kentucky ultimately “got one back.”

Even with UK putting some subsequent points on the board vs. Michigan in recruiting since the 2023 cycle, the Wolverines’ 2024 class (at No. 13) was still rated 11 spots ahead of the Cats (No. 24) overall in the Rivals.com ratings.

Though Davis gives UK three four-star recruits in the Rivals ratings among its six class of 2025 commitments to date, the Wildcats class rating, No. 38, is still eight spots behind Michigan at No. 30.

Whether Kentucky’s recent success wooing players away from Michigan tells us anything about the larger landscape of college football recruiting is unclear.

Four of the seven prospects UK has gotten commitments from that Michigan wanted and/or had are from Ohio.

Given the strong Buckeye State ties on the UK coaching staff — five Wildcats coaches, including head man Mark Stoops and recruiting ace Vince Marrow, are all from Youngstown — it’s not surprising that Kentucky can sometimes “punch above its weight” in Ohio recruiting.

Certainly, the head coaching transition at Michigan that saw Jim Harbaugh exit for the Los Angeles Chargers and be replaced by offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore has played a role. In the cases of Waller and Jaden Smith, in particular, the assistants who had recruited them primarily for Michigan were no longer on the Wolverines coaching staff at the time the players chose to move to UK.

It’s also at least possible that the way recruiting is done in the era of booster-funded collectives and name, image and likeness payments to players gives UK a chance to prioritize prospects at a level different than does Michigan and reap the benefits of that.

If so, that would support the idea that NIL is likely to create greater parity in college sports, not less.

But it is far too soon to draw any sweeping conclusions on that.

In the particular case of Marquise Davis, keep in mind that recruitments end with signed national letters of intent.

Until Davis is signed, no one will be surprised if Michigan — and a lot of other schools — keep pursuing the 6-foot-1, 195-pound back who earned 2023 Cleveland.com Offensive Player of the Year honors after running for 2,228 yards and 35 touchdowns as a high school junior.

What we can say is that for some months in 2023 and 2024, Kentucky has enjoyed a stretch of football recruiting wins at the expense of Michigan.

In a billion years, did you ever think you would read that sentence?

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