UK alum Tom Leach has been the play-by-play “Voice of the Wildcats” for the football Cats for 13 years and 10 years for men’s basketball. He is a four-time winner of the Kentucky Sportscaster of the Year award. Tom offers an entertaining and insightful perspective into UK athletics. Column entries will be posted twice per week through April. Read Tom’s full biography
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“Really? You’re sure?”
That was head coach Joker Philllips’ initial reaction last week when defensive line coach David Turner told him Luke McDermott, a walk-on, had earned a start at defensive tackle.
And the play we saw McDermott against Louisville justified the confidence Turner had in him.
“All I got to go on is what I see in practice,” Turner said after practice this week. “He comes out here every day, works his tail off and he gets better. He executes the defense and he makes plays. I had confidence and he played exactly like he practiced.”
Turner acknowledged McDermott is undersized at 280 pounds, but the Cats’ coach also knows few, if any, will outwork the Louisville Trinity High School product.
“He understands leverage,” Turner said. “And he works at his craft. He comes out early and works on his technique. He understands he’s not the biggest guy or the strongest guy but playing inside, it’s a game of leverage.”
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There was a time when a .500 season and minor bowl bid were cause for celebration for the University of Kentucky football program. Senior defensive end DeQuin Evans said those days are gone.
“We are definitley raising the bar and the thing with coach Joker is that he doesnt want us to be satisfied with being just okay,” Evans said. “He sees the potential in us.”
Evans said the players understand they have to work just a little harder than they’ve worked before and realize that pacing themselves just to get through a practice won’t allow them to achieve their goals.
“That will put us over the hump and put us at 10-2 and lead us to those kinds of seasons,” Evans said. “He sees it in us and he wants us to know what he sees in us and that all goes to working hard. We have got to keep working hard and keep pushing each other and keep coming out here every day.”
Evans said practices are faster than ever before.
“We get a lot more reps out here and I feel like guys are a lot more hungry than what I have seen at the beginning of the season,” Evans said. “I have seen a dramatic change in everybody as far as personalities, the way we play football, the way our bodies look. It was a huge transition.”
Evans is starting his second season of big-time college football and he does with a lot more knowledge of what it takes to succeed at this level.
“I learned football more than anything (last year),” he said. “I learned to play at the speed with everyone else in this league, and more than anything. I have learned how to study. I have learned how to study film, learned how to break down and analyze myself and what is going on in my opponents.”
