Kentucky Wildcats Football Mid-Week Update

The QB battle ain’t over ’til it’s over

Hey folks, it’s Wednesday and the football Cats have been practicing for 5 days now. Rather than the guesses that Fan Day provided, some tangible information is starting to leak out of camp. A reader can get some ideas of the depth chart and speculate which freshmen may redshirt/play.

***People aren’t going to be happy to hear this but Maxwell Smith has not sewed up the starting job and Patrick Towles hasn’t looked ready to lead an SEC football team. Translation: Morgan Newton might win the starting job again this year. If this happens people may riot. The reality is that Newton is a seasoned player who had a bad season in a bad offense surrounded by a bad supporting cast. Football is full of redemption stories like a scorned senior leading a team to a better season than anticipated. ( see Hartline, Mike) The other reality is that Smith was very average as a starter last year, but he has potential.

***In the aftermath  of the Marcus Caffey situation, Martavious Neloms has moved back to cornerback and sophomore Ashley Lowery has moved into the starting lineup. So the secondary right now is Neloms and Cartier Rice at corner and Lowery starting alongside Mikie Benton at safety.  Glenn Faulkner still has all of camp to make his move and is looking physically ready. The other impact here is that freshman safety Zack Blaylock may play this year due to depth.

*** The coaches seem really satisfied with the 2 hybrid positions. Bud Dupree has obviously received a lot of preseason praise and rightfully so, he was an impact freshman who will only get better. Opposite him Miles Simpson is replacing Winston Guy and Rick Minter feels he owns the starting spot.  He says Simpson could be better than Guy because of experience in the system.  Simpson has also impressively changed his body this year.

***In recruiting news, it sounds like Darren Dowdell was ready to commit to the Wildcats last week but his high school coaches talked him out of it. He said they told him it was “too early” hopefully that doesn’t mean “wait for bigger offers and we will push you to them.” It is often troubling to see a coach(es) having too much sway in a propects decision. On the other hand Grady HS has already sent Marcus Caffey to Lexington, so the coaches may not have any ill intent. The good news is that Dowdell will be visiting Lexington this weekend with his teammate Kivon Taylor, a QB/ATH.