Kentucky Wildcats Football Position Preview: Defensive Line
By Jason Marcum
DT Mister Cobble (also goes by PC Cobble)
September 24, 2011; Lexington, KY, USA; Florida Gators quarterback John Brantley (12) throws the ball under pressure from Kentucky Wildcats defensive tackle Mister Cobble (97) during the second half of play at Commonwealth Stadium. Florida defeated Kentucky 48-10. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports
Cobble, who has accounted for 58 tackles the past two seasons, is being counted on to be a force in the interior of the UK d-line. Along with fellow senior Donte Rumph, you’d be hard-pressed to find a senior DT-tandem as good as the one Kentucky is blessed to have, and having those two clogging up the middle will be vital in allowing D.J. Elliot to utilize a variety of blitzes off the edge while Rumph and Cobble are drawing double-teams on the interior.
The senior defensive lineman enters 2013 with a lighter frame, and may be the biggest benefactor of Eric Korem’s High Performance regimen. The 6-foot senior is listed at 338 pounds going into camp. Cobble has been hitting the weight room and conditioning program hard this preseason, which has him poised for a breakout campaign in 2013. He says he’s lost 15-20 pounds, seven percent body fat and gained five percent muscle.
"It just allows me to feel quicker, and I still feel really strong."
Conditioning has been a knock on Cobble throughout his career, as he’s been often too-gassed at the end of games and late in the season to play up to his potential. He has manged to play in all but two games since the start of 2011.
But last year, Cobble began suffering from an illness which caused him to miss two games, and once he returned he struggled to regain the strength and looked like a shell of his former self.