On the 1999 recruiting class…

“First of all, I’d like to express my gratitude to Coach Claude Bassett and his staff and the great job they’ve done in this recruiting process; our athletic administration here at UK which worked hard to make the recruiting weekends something that resulted in a great class; and last of all, our assistant coaches. They’ve been working seven days a week, many hours a day since August to make this come to fruition.”

Why he is so pleased with this class…

“We think it’s good addition to last year’s class in terms of building a championship program. We have speed on defense, four great offensive linemen, a good receiving corps. We also have a great quarterback. There are a lot of good reasons, but those are the ones that stand out.”

On whether the class contains one stand-out player like Dennis Johnson…

“Dennis Johnson was a great player. There are a lot of great players every year in the nation. But the publicity narrows it to one guy. But David Johnson and Ronnie Riley played just as well as Dennis. This class may not have the flash of having the player of the year in the nation, but if you look at the biographies of the guys, you’ll find it’s a strong class.”

On QB Jared Lorenzen…

“He’s got the same chance as any other freshman to come in here and play. We also have three good guys on campus who will compete hard for that position. How hard he works between now and August, and how well he’ll compete in August is up to him. But he’s a great player and I’m looking for him to do great things here.”

“What’s not to like about him? He’s a guy who can throw 70 yards on a dime, he rushed for 900 yards, he has great quickness for being the size he is, he’s a proven winner and comes from a great program. He’s a guy who can throw the ball and be his own pass protector at the same time.”

“He’s been to our quarterback camp. His junior year, he was a little rough in the mechanics, but you could see his great potential. When he came back for camp last summer, that’s when we really got excited.”

On how long it will take Lorenzen to learn the system…

“How long do you think it took Tim Couch to learn it? We came in April 1997 and Tim started the first game in September 1997. We’ve got a youth movement in our offense. I’m not going to hesitate to go with a young guy, just because he’s inexperienced. If he’s the best guy, he’s going to start.”

On the combination of Lorenzen and high school teammate Derek Smith…

“Anytime you can get a quarterback and a receiver who have played together and have great chemistry, that’s a plus. Derek is such a great player in his own right. It doesn’t matter who’s throwing the ball to him, he’s going to be a great tight end.”

On kicker Dustin Wynn…

“Dustin is a Kentucky guy and he has great leg strength. He’s big and tall, and he has the kind of build you need in a kicker. We felt like he was a good enough risk, much like we did with Seth Hanson when we recruited him. We expect him to be in prep school for a year, but that’s not all bad. When we bring him in, Seth will be a senior.”

On the four receivers…

“They each have different strengths. Ernest Simms is the fastest guy. He played tailback in high school and he has the most to learn in terms of catching the ball and running routes, things like that. He has to learn to be a receiver, but he has tremendous quickness and speed. Octavius Bond is a tall, angular guy who runs really well. He was in a great program and won a state championship. I see him as being a Quentin McCord-type player, only with a little more size. Derek Abney and Brad Pyatt are larger versions of Craig Yeast. Pyatt is a really strong guy and an avid weightlifter. Three of these guys have been cold-weather receivers, and that helps us a lot.”

On how exposure has helped in recruiting…

“We’ve had 23 games here, and 14 or 15 have been on TV. The exposure has helped us a lot.”

On the four linebackers, Mike Beshara, Jeremy Davis, Otis Grigsby, and William Orr…

“Size is obviously important, but what we liked the most about them is that they are good athletes. They can move their feet as well as having size. They’re also good students.”

On the defensive back position…

“We felt like we needed a little more help. Jeremy Bowie had shoulder surgery and will probably redshirt this year. We just felt like it was a good chance to get better. On defense, you have to be able to move and cover, and you need competition at each position to get that.”

On the number of recruits who come from teams that won state championships…

“We always try to recruit kids who come from winning programs. Not only are you getting guys who have played on winning teams, but you know how they’ve been taught since they were ninth-graders. You know the coaching staffs and how they have been coached, and that helps a lot.”

On LB Otis Grigsby…

“He’s got great speed and great range. He’s 6-4, 210. When you meet him, you think he’s a defensive end because he’s so big. But he’s a great linebacker. He’s a linebacker/defensive end package. He can drop into coverage and bat balls down, but he can also come on the blitz and get in the quarterback’s face like a defense end.”

On how productive the offense will be…

“I don’t know if we can be as productive as we were this year, because then we had guys who had been together for 23 games. Realistically, we want to be as productive as we were in 1997. We had a few older faces, but they were not old in our offense. The guys we have on campus now, they may be redshirt freshmen or sophomores, but they’ve been in our system for two years. You hope the system carries the load for you.”

On the success of the recruiting class…

“In the state of Kentucky, everybody we wanted, we got, which helped us with the out-of-state guys. You’re allowed 56 official visits, and I doubt we used more than 45 visits, so we had a pretty good ratio with the guys we brought to campus. Coach Bassett and his staff have done a tremendous job on background checks. There are a lot of good players out there, and you try to recruit the best guys you have a chance of signing.”

On the role of academics…

“We set some parameters before we started. Coach Bassett did a good job selecting from the pool of players we needed to look at. The academic parameters we set were pretty sizeable.”

On how going to the Outback Bowl affects recruiting…
“I think it’s going to pay off more next year. By the time we got to the bowl game, we probably had 20 commitments. It certainly helped with the last four or five guys at the end, who we might have lost to some other school if we were sitting at home.”

On what makes a team successful…

“It comes down to heart, team camaraderie, and character and all those things nobody grades. We didn’t get to the Outback Bowl because we had a great receiver and a great quarterback. We got there because we had great character. They set a goal and they reached it.”

On losing Tim Couch…

“I’m really happy for Tim. I probably knew it [that he was leaving] before he did. He was ready to do that, and we better be ready for him to do that. It has great advantages. If you study the way we plan things, you don’t just get a quarterback ready, you get an offensive line. It all has to mesh together. In some respects, Tim coming out kind of helps us because we have a young offensive line and young receivers, and now we’ll stick a young quarterback in there. It gives him a chance to grow up behind those young offensive linemen. They will bond together and develop that camaraderie.”

On when he expects UK to achieve the championship level of football…

“You look at when you can have championship-level defense. In 2001, Dennis Johnson, David Johnson and Ronnie Riley will be seniors. Other guys like Morris Lane will be redshirt juniors, and then we’ll have this class. Defense is where you win championships. You’ve got to have numbers and speed, and 2001 will probably be the first time we have that combination of things. Plus, we’ll have an offense that’s played together for about 30 games.”