Kentucky Wildcat Football: 5 Players who need to step up this spring

Despite being in the midst of the most exciting basketball season since 1998, I’m back to remind everyone that there is still a Kentucky football team, and they’ve just gotten spring practice under way. There will be several holes to fill this year and the spring will be the start of Kentucky’s chance to find new players to step up and be this year’s playmakers. To give everyone some football-themed reading material, I’ve compiled a list of the five players who have the most to prove this spring.

Who needs to show something this spring?

1. Morgan Newton
Newton is in a situation he has never been in before in his time at Kentucky. He is the clear-cut starter going into the spring and this is HIS team. The upside to this is that he will be able to take over a leadership role early and, for the first time since Andre Woodson’s senior season, the team has an obvious starter to build around. The downside to the predicament left by Mossakowski’s transfer is that Newton really has no one to push him and if he proves to be inadequate as a starter, the Cats are up the creek. He needs to show some major strides this spring.

2. Aaron Boyd
There might be no player more maligned than Aaron Boyd, but let’s be honest here; the deck was stacked against him. He’s from Lexington, he’s the brother of a popular former Kentucky quarterback, and he was a highly regarded four-star requite coming out of high school. Boyd had to wow from day one if he had any hop of not being considered a disappointment by UK fans and he has yet to “wow” anyone heading into his redshirt-junior season. The slate starts clean this spring though and after Kentucky lost Randall Cobb and Chris Matthews a door opened. Now Gene McCaskill is sitting out contact portions of the spring while rehabbing from a knee injury and the Wildcats are down to five healthy, scholarship receivers for spring. It’s now or never for Boyd.

3. Winston Guy
If Boyd has been the most maligned player, Guy isn’t far behind. As another local product, he was also highly rated as a prep player but has been a little more fortunate than Boyd in that he’s actually seen the field extensively in his time with UK. Going into his senior season, it’s beginning to look like the coaching staff has a linebacker/safety hybrid role in mind for Guy and he’s been through some of the linebacker drills already this spring. If Guy can play up to his potential, he can be the guy that this new defense is built around.

4. Ronnie Sneed
After starting out slow, Ronnie Sneed’s play really picked up as the season progressed. He went from an afterthought to one of Danny Trevathan’s best supporting players and became a consistent tackler as he matured in his role as the starting middle linebacker. Now he faces a new challenge this spring as Kentucky implements their new defensive schemes that will have 4-3, 3-4, and 4-2-5 looks. Its been fairly apparent thus far that coach Minter is looking for versatility at each position and Sneed will have to be able to fill multiple roles in this new defense if he hopes to hold onto his starting job.

5. Raymond Sanders
It seems like Derrick Locke was around for a hundred years but now his eligibility is spent and the Wildcats will have to find a replacement for a guy that had become an offensive mainstay. Having backup Donald Russell transfer has opened the door for sophomore-to-be Raymond Sanders to lock down the staring job as the most experienced returning scholarship running back on the roster. It will be no walk in the park for Sanders though as highly touted runner Branson Gainer and sophomore bruiser Jonathan George will be nipping at his heels while CoShik Williams always seems to come out of nowhere to impress each spring. If he can’t lock the job down by the end of spring all bets are off when Josh Clemons and Marcus Caffey arrive this summer.

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