Today’s story (my first for the Courier-Journal) on UK’s freshmen wide receivers is here. Per usual in this wacky newspaper biz, there was a good deal more information than could be crammed into confines of this morning’s fish wrap.
But that’s what the neverending interwebs are for, right? Give me limitless space and I will give you all the leftover stats and quotes you can stomach – and then a few more. This will be fun. So, on the topic of the Wildcats’ wideouts, some additional stuff:
What the Wildcats lost: Randall Cobb and Chris Matthews caught a combined 145 passes last season for 1,942 yards and 16 TD. Throw in running back Derrick Locke (who caught 34 passes for 318 yards and is also gone now) and UK is suddenly missing 60.1 percent of last year’s receptions and 64.6 percent of its receiving yardage. In their Kentucky careers, Cobb and Matthews caught a combined 237 passes for 2,940 yards and 25 TD.
What the Wildcats have back: Junior La’Rod King (6-4, 194) has 46 career receptions for 620 yards and 6 TD. Junior Gene McCaskill (6-0, 206) has 32 career catches for 344 yards and 0 TD. Senior Matt Roark (6-5, 214) has 18 career receptions, 235 yards, 0 TD. Junior Aaron Boyd (6-4, 217) and sophomore Brian Adams (6-5, 221) have 8 career catches combined for 65 yards.
So the five returning veteran receivers have been significantly less productive in their careers (104 catches, 1,264 yards, 6 TD between them) than the duo of Cobb and Matthews were last season alone. Thus the need for some fresh faces in the 2011 receiving corps. Which brings us to …
What the Wildcats added: Four freshmen receivers (again, read about them here) have a legitimate shot at helping UK this fall. That number would be five if Nile Daniel, a burner from Georgia who averaged 32.6 yards per catch as a senior and returned six career kicks for touchdowns, weren’t still sidelined. Daniel (a supposed 4.4 guy in the 40) is being held out of preseason practices while he awaits word on his eligibility from the NCAA Clearinghouse.
So for now, that leaves Paducah Tilghman’s Josh Forrest – who said on media day, “Everybody feels like they have a chance” to play early – along with Rashad Cunningham from Mobile, Ala., Daryl Collins from Gadsden, Ala., and Demarco Robinson from Ellenwood, Ga., as the rookies pushing for playing time. Wide receivers coach Tee Martin singled out the latter three earlier this week as standouts in the first few practices of camp.
Here are Martin’s comments on the rookies (pieces of these are in today’s story, so I apologize for any duplication):
“They’re coming along. One thing that’s evident is that they’re extremely talented. … We’ve got to get them lined up, get them doing the right things, but there’s no question about the talent, about the speed, the athleticism, the size. We’ve got a good mixture of all of that in these young guys. Once we get them caught up on what’s going on … talent-wise, they’re pretty good.
“They’re all impressive at some things. Rashad Cunningham is a big, physical kid (with) big, strong hands … a lot faster than we gave him credit for in recruiting. He’s shown it out here. And Demarco Robinson and Daryl Collins are really home run-hitter-type guys. They’re doing some stuff that’s very impressive. We’ve just got to keep those guys confident in what they’re doing, keep them getting reps out there … and hopefully they can make some plays in the scrimmages to where we can see what they can do.”
To Martin’s “home run” comment about Robinson and Collins, it’s worth noting that Robinson once caught 10 passes for 246 yards and 5 TD in a single playoff game – and that Collins was used at quarterback, running back, wide receiver and returning kicks in high school. Sound familiar? A little like do-everything star Randall Cobb? Collins told colleague Jody Demling (since I unfortunately wasn’t in town yet for UK’s media day and unwittingly missed the only opportunity to interview freshmen before the season) that Wildcats coaches are comparing him to Cobb.
“That’s a lot,” he said. “I can be like Randall. I believe I can step in and be that next man. But you have to work for it and you have to earn it on the field. I am ready to work for it. (The freshmen) can make a big impact. We have to work for it, but we can make an impact.”
If nothing else, these rookies already talk a big game – which might be why they’re off-limits to us scribes. (Thanks to Jody for passing along that quote.) So what about the Cobb comparison? I asked Martin this week if they’d identified at least a candidate to replace the versatile former UK star.
“A lot of them did some things in high school,” Martin said. “I don’t know yet. We’ll put on the pads and see the real, live running speeds of these guys and the toughness of them mentally, physically, what they can handle – then maybe so. But that’s a package we’d like to be able to do (having a guy that can run, pass and catch). That’s a package that was very good for us in the past few years. We’ll identify somebody, but right now we’re just kind of installing (the basic offense), getting the plays in so we can teach them. Once we see who can do what, then we’ll start looking for that person.”
Whether there’s a Randall Cobb clone among the freshmen remains to be seen, but the new guys have already eased starting quarterback Morgan Newton’s mind a little. He said receivers coach Tee Martin, a former quarterback, is obviously looking out for him (since Martin recruited four of Newton’s five new weapons).
“That freshman group is really talented,” Newton said. “There’s going to be a lot of guys who’ll be able to step up and help. We’re trying to teach them as much as possible as fast as possible. They’re freshmen, so they have a lot to learn, but we’re trying to get them ready. They’ve all showed signs of doing great things. A lot of guys have made plays these first couple days of practice.”
Even the rookie receivers’ competition, junior La’Rod King, can’t deny how talented they are. Well, he tried. Asked which of the newcomers have wowed him at some point in practice, King said:
“It’s not even a ‘wow’ yet. The pads are not even on yet (this was Monday and the pads are on now). I just want to see who’s mentally tough. Physically, all the ability is there. Mentally is what the game is made of. You have to know where you line up, where your route is, make sure we’re not cutting off the quarterback or cutting off another receiver. When they get all of the offense down, that’s when I’ll say, ‘OK, he’s ready to play.’ Until then, I have no opinion on it.”
That, of course, is not entirely true. King kept talking, and the more he did, the more credit he gave the freshmen. The gist? They’re naturals.
“It puts a little heat on you,” King said. “Me, Matt Roark and E.J. Fields came into college as quarterbacks, so we had to learn the receiver position. It took a whole year to learn everything from scratch. (The freshmen) came in already as receivers, knowing the stuff that took us a whole year to know. So they have a little edge compared to when we were freshmen. Their footwork is pretty nice. They have that receiver mentality. We had to learn that.
“These freshmen are really talented, and a couple of them down the road – as their mental states build up – they might be able to help us this year.”
As for all the “let’s see how the do in pads” talk, head coach Joker Phillips seemed to answer that question when he told reporters Tuesday that after the first real hitting of camp, “there’s a few (freshmen) that didn’t shy away from the contact. That’s what you want to see. Those are the guys we’ll zero in on and start trying to get ready.”
Those don’t only include offensive players, he said. “We have got to be better on special teams and there are some guys that just walked in the door who can help us on special teams. We can’t just use offensive guys to cover kicks for us. That hurt us last year. This year, we’ll ask some of the defensive guys to cover kicks – and it will be some of the young defensive guys also.”
If you can’t tell, Phillips is pretty darn pleased with the Class of 2011 overall. Earlier this week, he said that after getting a chance to see them practice, “There isn’t a mistake in that freshman class.”
