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Why is everyone saying UK is young?

  • Miller, West, Robinson, and Warren are the only projected starters that are True Sophmores or Redshirt Freshmen., we're not starting any True Freshmen. Maxwell is actually in his 3 Rd year at UK, so I don't count him as a pup. Plus he beat out a sr. For the job.

    Defense has 2 true Sophmores starting Dupree and Lowery. So what gives on the young talk?

    UofL is a lot younger than we are.

    golfnut51

  • So, you are a golf nut?

    signature image

    Big Sarge

  • golfnut51 said...

    Miller, West, Robinson, and Warren are the only projected starters that are True Sophmores or Redshirt Freshmen., we're not starting any True Freshmen. Maxwell is actually in his 3 Rd year at UK, so I don't count him as a pup. Plus he beat out a sr. For the job.

    Defense has 2 true Sophmores starting Dupree and Lowery. So what gives on the young talk?

    UofL is a lot younger than we are.

    Golf - I somewhat agree with you. I don't think we are as young as some are saying. However, if you look at the 2 deep we are going with 2 true Frosh WRs, probably a True Frosh RB, and 1 True Frosh OL. On defense I think you are missing Miles Simpson as True Sophmore starter at LB and the fact that both of the #2 CBs may end up being true Frosh before it is all over. The first 22 are not EXTREMELY young, but when you consider the 2nd 22 it gets young pretty quick.

    usa1000 ●

  • We supposedly have an obscene amount of freshies and soph's on the 2 and 3 deep depth chart.

    Likely the best players on offense:
    QB - For the exception of Newton we are soph's or younger
    RB - our highest recruited and best all around RB's are soph's or younger
    WR - Leaving out King, our best WR's are likely soph's or younger
    TE - the starters are considered to be soph's or younger
    O-line - the entire left side of the line are soph's

    Defense:
    DE's - it has been stated by the staff and players that the best pash rushing DE's are soph's or younger
    LB's - With the exception of Avery, the main players are soph's or younger

    see a pattern yet?

    CB's - wow are they young behind Neloms and Rice.....bunch of freshmen back there

    At a place like Kentucky you don't mind playing a freshman/sophomore or two, but you absolutely don't want to have this many on your 2 deep. You want to farm/grow your recruits and play them when they are Jr/Sr's and physically ready to play. Many of the SEC schools we play against can get a 250-260 pound DE out of high school that can play relatively quickly as needed.......we have to get a 220 athlete and hope he develops into a DE. Look at Collins Ukwu for example. He was such a DE, and when he played early he wasn't physically ready......and it showed.

    BlueRaider22 ●

  • Blue - Nice post. You made some great points. Hopefully the young depth will learn the ropes quickly and we can begin to develop more seasoned talent. It would be nice to see 18 of the top 22 as Redshirt Soph or older. We need to continue to continue to out recruit what we have so I think we will always play 8-10 true frosh. That is OK, b/c that means we are redshirting 15-17 guys annually. UK will always have to sell the hope of playing early to the high 3-star and 4-star kids.

    Man, the season is almost upon us.

    usa1000 ●

  • BlueRaider22 said...

    We supposedly have an obscene amount of freshies and soph's on the 2 and 3 deep depth chart.

    Likely the best players on offense: QB - For the exception of Newton we are soph's or younger RB - our highest recruited and best all around RB's are soph's or younger WR - Leaving out King, our best WR's are likely soph's or younger TE - the starters are considered to be soph's or younger O-line - the entire left side of the line are soph's

    Defense: DE's - it has been stated by the staff and players that the best pash rushing DE's are soph's or younger LB's - With the exception of Avery, the main players are soph's or younger

    see a pattern yet?

    CB's - wow are they young behind Neloms and Rice.....bunch of freshmen back there

    At a place like Kentucky you don't mind playing a freshman/sophomore or two, but you absolutely don't want to have this many on your 2 deep. You want to farm/grow your recruits and play them when they are Jr/Sr's and physically ready to play. Many of the SEC schools we play against can get a 250-260 pound DE out of high school that can play relatively quickly as needed.......we have to get a 220 athlete and hope he develops into a DE. Look at Collins Ukwu for example. He was such a DE, and when he played early he wasn't physically ready......and it showed.

    Nice Post!, I consider young as this being the beginning of there second year.

    Is there an updated depth chart with all the Freshmen on it?

    golfnut51

  • golfnut51 said...

    Nice Post!, I consider young as this being the beginning of there second year.

    Is there an updated depth chart with all the Freshmen on it?

    Depth chart probably won't be released until next week. And just to add to BlueRaider's post. The majority of our "sophomore" class are actually RS Frosh. That means that a lot of these guys have never played in a game, but will be relied on pretty heavily this year. Only 10 true frosh played last year....1 of those being Glenn Faulkner who is out at least 6-8 weeks (maybe a RS candidate), the other being Josh Clemons who's also having lingering issues from his knee injury last year.

    I think once the depth chart is released - I think we'll see in our top 44 (22 O/22 D) a mix of some JRs and SRs for sure as you point out.....but we'll see a lot (maybe the majority of that 44) of guys that are either Sophs with limited game experience last year, or RS Frosh, or Frosh in that top 44.

    We are young. Our depth is young. And many of our "starters" who are JRs or SRs have never started before so there's an "inexperience" factor involved with our 1st Teamers as well....

    Chiuk

  • From a column I wrote for the Football Yearbook:

    The Cats' two-deep depth chart has a whopping 26 players who are either redshirt freshmen or sophomores, including nine projected starters. That total does not include highly regarded redshirt freshmen like Bookie Cobbins, Rashad Cunningham and Jabari Johnson, nor does it take into account a freshman class that arrived this summer and is considered one of the program's deepest recruiting hauls.

    Marcus Caffey is obviously out this year, but you've got probably 8-10 true freshmen that will see some sort of action. That's a whole lot of players who are awfully young.

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    Follow me on Twitter: '@TCPMattMay'

    Matt May ●

  • golfnut51 said...

    Miller, West, Robinson, and Warren are the only projected starters that are True Sophmores or Redshirt Freshmen., we're not starting any True Freshmen. Maxwell is actually in his 3 Rd year at UK, so I don't count him as a pup. Plus he beat out a sr. For the job.

    Defense has 2 true Sophmores starting Dupree and Lowery. So what gives on the young talk?

    UofL is a lot younger than we are.

    Maxwell Smith is not in his third year at UK. He was a true Freshman last year. Your count on starters on the defense is also off I count 4 soph or below on offense as starters and I count 5 sophmores or below on defense. Then the team gets really young on back ups with the defense having 9 soph and the offense having 8 sophs. I didnt count the FB on offense because I counted 3 WRs as starters. The FB is a soph,.

    This post was edited by Cll80 on 8/23/2012 at 8:59 AM

    Cll80

  • Cll80 said...

    Maxwell Smith is not in his third year at UK. He was a true Freshman last year.

    You are correct. But he is not your typical 2nd yr player. He overstated his point, because he came in early.

    stillDA23

  • While I agree that we are young in depth, I think people sometimes mistake raw for young as well. We have some pretty raw guys that will be starting at key positions.

    WildcatBelle

  • I would say it's because they are. Just my personal opinion. SEC is a grown man's league.

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    Chris Fisher

  • We are young but a ton of teams are however at UK we do need to play 3rd-4th-5th year players for us to compete week in and out. As for Miles Simpson he's a Redshirt Soph...

    todd

  • Regardless of the youth, I just want our guys to come out mean & nasty, punch U of L in the mouth & tell them " I play for Kentucky, I'm better than you, and I'm going to beat your ass!" That's all I want, a show of heart by our guys. We win, we win. If not, at least they're not laying down like they did last year.
    But I feel good about our chances against Louisville this year. Just want to see some fire out of our guys for a change. hammer

    suncat05

  • Chris Fisher said...

    I would say it's because they are. Just my personal opinion. SEC is a grown man's league.

    Chris - You may be right for the most part, but a quick look at the national champions depth chart doesn't support the fact that you have to have age in the first 45 players to be great.

    Alabama's depth chart shows 21 True Freshman, Redshirt Freshman, and Soph. in their top 46 players. Now, they didn't list any of the Soph as RS Soph and I would assume some of them RS, but the point being is that they don't have a JR and SR dominated second string. They also show one JC player starting. So, almost have of the National Champions 2-3 deep are "young." I'm not trying to compare talent just age. I think defensively UK has 2 SR CBs, 1 SR S, 1 Soph S, 1 Jr LB, 1 RS Soph LB, 1 Soph LB, 2 JR DT (one is probably 23 y/o), SR DE. The back ups are really young, but so are Alabama's. Coaches have to adjust annually. Hopefully the newbies are more talented than the oldies.

    usa1000 ●

  • Regardless of the youth, I just want our guys to come out mean & nasty, punch U of L in the mouth & tell them " I play for Kentucky, I'm better than you, and I'm going to beat your ass!" That's all I want, a show of heart by our guys. We win, we win. If not, at least they're not laying down like they did last year.
    But I feel good about our chances against Louisville this year. Just want to see some fire out of our guys for a change. hammer

    suncat05

  • If you look at our 2 deep depth chart and don't think that is young something is wrong with you or you are looking at the wrong depth chart. just sayin'

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    Stoopified!

    cobbycobb

  • Seriously, I'll take young, talented guys every single week as long as we have the staff to coach 'em up. IMO, this is a year where we will see what our staff is all about. I don't expect miracles but I do expect to see a much better product on the field with some of our young talent. It may take a bit to get going but we do have some serious talent from our Soph's on down.

    rob65 ●

  • usa1000 said...

    Chris - You may be right for the most part, but a quick look at the national champions depth chart doesn't support the fact that you have to have age in the first 45 players to be great.

    Alabama's depth chart shows 21 True Freshman, Redshirt Freshman, and Soph. in their top 46 players. Now, they didn't list any of the Soph as RS Soph and I would assume some of them RS, but the point being is that they don't have a JR and SR dominated second string. They also show one JC player starting. So, almost have of the National Champions 2-3 deep are "young." I'm not trying to compare talent just age. I think defensively UK has 2 SR CBs, 1 SR S, 1 Soph S, 1 Jr LB, 1 RS Soph LB, 1 Soph LB, 2 JR DT (one is probably 23 y/o), SR DE. The back ups are really young, but so are Alabama's. Coaches have to adjust annually. Hopefully the newbies are more talented than the oldies.

    Yeah but comparing our 2 and 3 stars with Bama's 4 and 5 star freshmen, isn't really a good comparsion for the youth question. I would expect Bama's recruits to be both phyically and mentally ready for SEC play while we usually need ours to hit the weight room for a year or two.

    UKlaw82

  • Talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah.

    UK should beat Louisville 8 out of 10 years no matter who we start.

    Now no more excuses, BEAT LOUISVILLE

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    The meanest dog in Taiwan.

    mrhotdice

  • usa1000 said...

    Chris - You may be right for the most part, but a quick look at the national champions depth chart doesn't support the fact that you have to have age in the first 45 players to be great.

    Alabama's depth chart shows 21 True Freshman, Redshirt Freshman, and Soph. in their top 46 players. Now, they didn't list any of the Soph as RS Soph and I would assume some of them RS, but the point being is that they don't have a JR and SR dominated second string. They also show one JC player starting. So, almost have of the National Champions 2-3 deep are "young." I'm not trying to compare talent just age. I think defensively UK has 2 SR CBs, 1 SR S, 1 Soph S, 1 Jr LB, 1 RS Soph LB, 1 Soph LB, 2 JR DT (one is probably 23 y/o), SR DE. The back ups are really young, but so are Alabama's. Coaches have to adjust annually. Hopefully the newbies are more talented than the oldies.

    Bama can recruit a freshman DE that is already 260# and 6% body fat. We can and do not. We have to recruit a 230# DE and bulk him up over a few yrs to get to 260# of muscle.

    Not to mention that Bama has some of the best veteran talent in the league playing right next to their young players......we don't.

    BlueRaider22 ●

  • mrhotdice said...

    Talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah.

    UK should beat Louisville 8 out of 10 years no matter who we start.

    Now no more excuses, BEAT LOUISVILLE

    Rack. 70% of UL's 2 deep is made of up kids that have played 2 years or so.

    MinterWonderlnd

  • 25 freshmen and sophs projected on Uk's two deep. WE ARE YOUNG.

    How’d UK get so young? (HINT: Class of 2009) | Kyle Tucker – UK Beat

    Louisville, Kentucky Sports blogs for The Courier-Journal

    blogs.courier-journal.com
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    Stoopified!

    cobbycobb

  • mrhotdice said...

    Talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah.

    UK should beat Louisville 8 out of 10 years no matter who we start.

    Now no more excuses, BEAT LOUISVILLE

    Who is making excuses? I don't see anyone making excuses for anything in this thread. The question was why are people saying Kentucky is young? Then people gave reasons.

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    Follow me on Twitter: '@TCPMattMay'

    Matt May ●

  • mrhotdice said...

    Talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah.

    UK should beat Louisville 8 out of 10 years no matter who we start.

    Now no more excuses, BEAT LOUISVILLE

    Dude, try presenting something with a purpose, you sound like a middle school kid.

    UKlaw82

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