One Kentucky player who certainly is not disappointed the Wildcats are playing Iowa in the Music City Bowl Saturday is freshman receiver Barion Brown, a Nashville native.
“Letting them see how hard we have worked for this will be great,” said Brown. “Great school, great environment, great coach. You come here ready to work.”
Brown certainly worked well for Kentucky. He had 45 catches for 604 yards – 13.4 yards per reception – and four touchdowns. He returned a kickoff 100 yards for a score and averaged 28 yards per return. Brown proved he was one of the best young receivers not just in the SEC but in the country.
“God put me in this position. I always could be better and will always push to be the best I can be,” he said. “I feel I left a lot on the field and can be better (next season).”
Top-ranked Georgia saw plenty of what he can do already when he had 10 catches for a UK-high 145 yards and a touchdown. He was named to the all-SEC freshman team and third-team all-SEC pick.
He says he can still pick up defenses quicker and he continues to adjust to the speed of SEC football. He’s confident more reps/experience will take care of that in 2023.
“Picking up the speed of the game and knowledge of the game will help me a lot. Just knowing the coverages and defender’s tendencies by watching more film,” he said.
Kentucky won’t have quarterback Will Levis or running back Kenneth Horsey in Saturday’s game. Head coach Mark Stoops also fired offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello after the season ended and
tight ends coach/associate head coach Vince Marrow will call plays just like he did in the TaxSlayer Bowl two years ago when UK beat North Carolina State.Brown said the offensive remains “kind of the same” even without Levis playing.
“We won’t put in too much new. It is hard to change the playbook a lot at this time of year,” the freshman said. “I wish they were playing but our goal is to win the bowl. We are still practicing hard, watching film.”
He’s confident backup quarterbacks Kaiya Sheron, Destin Wade (another Nashville native) and Deuce Hogan will do just fine.
“They are great quarterbacks, always have been,” Brown said. “I can’t wait to play with them. I love my guys.”
He knows Wade would be thrilled to have a chance to play in his hometown, too.
“it would be great. I can’t wait to see my boy,” Brown said.
He said the Cats have to continue to “focus” on what lies ahead.
“We got to go out and put on a show. Just block out the negativity and work hard to win,” he said. “This game is in Nashville, my hometown. I just can’t wait to play.”
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Florida A&M coach Robert McCullum watched UK freshman guard Cason Wallace score a career-high 27 points and dish out nine assists in a 20-point win over his team but was most impressed that he was a “two-way player” for the Cats.
“To find a young player — a freshman — that plays that way on both ends is really impressive. Normally, for young players, it takes a while to get them to buy in on defense, but he plays on both ends,” McCullum said.
“He can hurt you in so many ways offensively. He can get to the basket, he can get his shot off the dribble, and he can catch and shoot. Then you look at his size. Small guards are going to have a lot of difficulty trying to guard him.”
Wallace hit five 3-pointers against Florida A&M but he also had four steals to demonstrate his two-way ability.
Wallace said he actually went into the game with a “different mindset” to get to the basket more instead of shooting 3-pointers that led him to being more aggressive.
“The 3’s had started falling so I kind of fell in love with it but getting back to that old feel and getting open shots (felt good),” Wallace said after the Florida A&M win.
Wallace was one of 10 freshmen ESPN’s Jeff Borzello singled out as the “Best of the Best” rookies this year in college hoops.
“He doesn’t have the big numbers of some of the other freshmen on this list, but Wallace has been one of the best two-way first-year players in the country — and more prolific outings appear to be coming,” Borzello wrote. “Observers have been calling for John Calipari to give Wallace more freedom.”
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Kentucky got the quarterback it wanted in the transfer portal for expected new offensive coordinator Liam Coen when North Carolina State’s Devin Leary picked UK over a bevy of other offers.
“I mean anybody and everybody that was in the quarterback market, was after him. We really feel like we hit a home run with him,” Stoops said. “Again, I told you, I feel confident with the quarterbacks that we have on campus, but this gives you a one-year transfer free agent, if you will, to come in for a year and really bridge that gap, let our guys continue to grow.
Leary did not play in the TaxSlayer Bowl when UK beat North Carolina State to end its 2020 season. He threw for 3,433 yards and 35 touchdowns in 2021 with just five interceptions in 12 games. He completed 118 of 193 passes for 1,265 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2021 before an injury ended his season. NC State was 5-1 and ranked in the top 15 when he was injured.
One interesting tidbit: Leary writes left-handed but is a right-handed passer because he used his brother’s baseball glove as a kid that went on his left hand and forced him to throw with his right arm.
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One thing about Oscar Tshiebwe is that he is brutally honest, so when he explains what has been wrong with the Kentucky offense he does not mince words.
“I think the problem with the offense — we just gotta be exactly where Coach wants us to be,” he said while admitting at times he’s not been in sync with teammates in the half court offense. “Come in and tell me what we’re running so I can position myself. I gotta be in the right place.
“For us, sometimes, we’re just not in the right place. Sometimes, even me, I struggle, because I run so fast, and I get there. The gym is loud — if Sahvir (Wheeler) calls something, I don’t know what we’re running.”
If last season’s unanimous national player of the year doesn’t know what the offense is running in late December, that’s a huge problem that requires more than just the “tweak” coach John Calipari says he has added recently.
“If we put ourselves in a position where we’re always where Coach wants us to be, I think it would make it easy,” Tshiebwe added. “Most of the time, we (aren’t) in the right places and positions.”
Tshiebwe said Calipari has been a “little bit tough” on all the players recently trying to get them on the same page.
“He was jumping around. We were like, ‘Wow, he’s about to get me,’” Tshiebwe said about one recent team film session
Calipari has also been preaching patience with the players in the half-court offense.
“We’re not patient,” Jacob Toppin said. “I feel like, if we get an offensive rebound, we’re trying to put it back in instead of running another offensive play. We just have to have more patience offensively, and we’ll get better at that.”
CJ Fredrick had his own shooting woes before finally hitting shots against Florida A&M, something he was expected to do regularly this season but has not.
“I’m feeling good with where this can go,” Fredrick said. “We really can be a good offensive team. And I think we’re gonna get there. But it’s just going to be every day — getting better and better and better. So, I’m excited.”
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Vince Marrow mentioned several weeks ago on WLAP Sunday Morning Sports that he hoped if UK did not get invited to a bowl game in Florida that the Cats would play in the Music City Bowl in Nashville despite the game starting Saturday at the same time the UK-Louisville basketball game does.
“I remember when we first got here, we were just trying to get to a bowl. But I think the Music City Bowl is a good bowl, I don’t know what people are talking about,” Marrow said. “For me personally, our fans may get mad, but I hoped it was Nashville so a lot of our fans can drive and don’t have to spend all that money.
“You can go down and come back, it’s like another home game. I was really hoping it would be (Nashville). Iowa, they’re a Big Ten team, they’re one of the top teams and anytime you go up against coach (Kirk) Ferentz and them it’s a great opportunity.”
Kentucky beat Iowa in the Citrus Bowl last year for its 10th win. Now Kentucky gets a chance to beat Iowa again and finish the year 8-5.
Marrow, who will call plays in the game with input from other UK offensive coaches, has not named a starting quarterback but freshman Destin Wade of Nashville seems to be the likely starter even though redshirt freshman Kiaya Sheron got the start against South Carolina during the season when starter Will Levis was injured.
“Destin really started coming on probably the last four weeks of the regular season,” Marrow said.
Head coach Mark Stoops mentioned Wade several times late in the season and admitted he came close to playing him against South Carolina, too.
“When I recruited Destin Wade, he’s a winner. That’s what people don’t realize. He’s a winner and won a very high league,” Marrow said. “He can make every throw, he’s athletic so we’re just going to put a little bit in. You put a little bit of the offense we had with the last coordinator and then you go with that.”
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If you ever happen to call former UK receiver Cisco Bryant and get his voice mail, you will hear a child’s voice. It’s his son, Ty, who made the voice mail recording at age 4 — and last week the Frederick Douglass three-star safety signed to play football at Kentucky.
“Every time I change phones, thanks to technology I move that voice mail to the new phone,” Cisco Bryant said.
Ty Bryant can still remember recording that voice mail message for his father.
“It was at one of our old houses,” the UK signee said. “He (Cisco) it brings back memories for him and he saved it. He likes when people call and hear it. He gets a big kick out of it.”
Cisco said it’s not unusual for someone to tell him they thought Ty was his only child and wondered who was on the voice mail message.
“This is a true statement. I didn’t tell him what to say when we did it. He just did it and did it on the first take. He had been asking me if he could do the message if I got a new phone, so I let him and he just did it.”
Ty remembers his father telling him a few things to include in the message.
“But I just went with it and added my own flavor,” Ty said.
The message ends with “Go Wildcats” and now Ty is going to play for the Cats just like his dad did.
“That was just something I threw in there. I grew up a Kentucky fan,” he said. “Every little kid then loved Oregon because of the jerseys but as I got older I realized it was about more than the color of the jersey. It was who loved you and I fell back in love with Kentucky. I was so blessed to get that offer after my sophomore year.
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Quote of the Week: “He is a great coach but on top of that he is a great human being. The word about him is professional. Not that any coaches are unprofessional but he talks to us as pros because he knows we all want to be there,” UK offensive guard Kenneth Horsey on offensive line coach Zach Yenser.
Quote of the Week 2: “I’m trying to help these kids realize their dreams, that’s my goal. I want to give the young men energy, I want to be able to feed into their lives every single day and provide whatever they need because I’m here for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” new UK special teams coordinator/running backs coach Jay Boulware on his goal with players.
Quote of the Week 3: “Coaches would tell me would you mind hitting this guy up and starting a relationship with him. That’s typically how that goes,” UK quarterback Will Levis on how he helped recruit quarterbacks in the transfer portal for Kentucky.
