Kentucky’s coaching staff feels good about the relief performance of quarterback Maxwell Smith, even when they didn’t know what the true freshman was up to.
“It was obvious that he’s talented,” offensive coordinator Randy Sanders said. “But it’s also obvious that he doesn’t really know what’s going on yet. He made a couple of nice throws, but he also had a couple of plays that I’m not sure what happened or what he was doing.
“There is some ability there and things we can build on,” Sanders said. “But we’ve got a lot of work to do with him.”
Smith, who has not played a game since he high school senior season ended in December 2009, was called into action for the fourth quarter with Kentucky hopelessly behind Florida. He completed 6-of-11 passes for 41 yards.
“We moved the ball, did some things. A couple of mistakes with signals, but that’s my fault,” Smith said. “Other than that, I think I did a pretty good job.”
The 6-foot-4 freshman admitted the obvious. He was nervous.
“A little bit, but coming in against Florida you’re going to have a few nerves,” Smith said. “Other than that, it felt good to get out there. It felt great. It’s been a long time since I was hit and it felt great to get hit again.”
He also went into battle with some advice from starting quarterback Morgan Newton.
“Morgan told me to relax and to make sure I was seeing everything and sliding my protection the way it needs to go,” Smith said. “He just said, ‘Relax, stay calm and make your throws.’
“Me and Morgan are good friends,” Smith added. “He wants me to do well, I want him to do well. That’s the kind of relationship we have.”
Two plays into his collegiate career, Smith passed 10 yards to La’Rod King.
The first couple of balls came out pretty bad, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. I put them in a good spot and our receivers made some good catches.
“My first completion, La’Rod ran a little curl. It wasn’t a very good ball but I put it right on him,” Smith said. “After that, I was like, ‘OK, let’s go. Just relax. Here we go, just like you’ve been doing your whole life.’”
Kentucky trailed 41-10 when Smith entered, but with the entire fourth quarter remaining, Sanders was going to make the most of the situation.
“The guy is a true freshman and for his first action to be against Florida, that’s a pretty tall order. So I tried to protect him a little bit,” Sanders said. “But I also wanted to see him play, see what was going to happen. Hopefully, he’ll get better from the experience.”
Coach Joker Phillips was happy with Smith’s debut.
“Played as good as expected,” Phillips said. “He went in the game and he moved the ball, threw some nice passes. The game was a little fast for a guy going in the first game, especially when you're going into an SEC game. But I thought he handled himself well.
“I think it's great experience for him,” Phillips said. “He'll only be better because of the experience that he got tonight.”
The effort was not astounding enough to create a quarterback controversy, but Phillips will rest a little easier now that Smith’s maiden has been broken.
“We don't have a quarterback controversy,” Phillips said. “Every opportunity we get to get Max in the game, we will, and we had an opportunity tonight.
“If we're struggling at quarterback, we know now that the guy can go in there and handle himself,” the coach added. “He did a decent job tonight, so this experience gives us that opportunity.”
You’ll forgive Smith, however, if he treats this first game as a starting point for winning the starting job some day.
“That’s got to be my goal,” Smith said. “Every practice I go out and try to get better and see what happens.”
