Feb. 3, 2000
2000 Kentucky Football Signees
Signee Bios
Coaches’ Quotes
Head Coach Hal Mumme
“I’m very pleased with the job that our staff has done in recruiting thisyear.This was our best year of recruiting here at Kentucky. We have had seven oreight of the guys in camp before so we were pretty familiar with them and gladto get them here.”
“There is a lot to be pleased about. I am real happy with the defensivepersonnel that we got and we got some good offensive linemen as well. Gettingquarterback Shane Boyd is a real plus so we really feel like we have filledallof our needs well. We needed to get some more offensive linemen, that wasreally important, and what we got will really allow us to improve in thatarea.We also needed more defensive linemen and more cover corners.”
On Shane Boyd:
“Shane (Boyd) is a great competitor, he has a great arm and great feet, he hasall the tools. Size-wise he is about the same size as (Dusty) Bonner. He wonsome big games at Henry Clay and we know that he is a really smart kid. In allmy years of doing this (recruiting), I’ve never seen a guy as focused on theentire recruiting process as Shane was. He was really analytical on hisdecision and we really didn’t know what he was thinking until he called andtold us that he was coming here.”
“It is really important to get guys that you want in your home state or town.When Shane came to camp that first summer here he really lit it up throwingtheball. He has great pocket feet and great speed in the 4.7 range. He is a goodathlete who has played a lot of sports, all of that is a plus.”
On the receivers:
“Basically we recruited a whole lineup of receivers. We got a speed guy in(Tommy) Cook who came to camp for us last summer and ran a 4.48 for us ongrassand in cleats. That was important because we knew it was a true time and hecaught the ball well. He caught 51 balls in a 5A league as a sophomore andthenplayed quarterback his last two years and made a lot of plays.”
“(Justin) Hermes is more of a possession type guy who should be the same sizeas Garry Davis. He has good speed and played in an offense where the pass wasfeatured and he has caught lots of ball. He made a real clutch game-winningcatch for his team in the state championship game. He is a tough kid, heplayedthis whole season with a broken collarbone and I was really impressed withthat.”
“Gerad Parker is the same type of receiver as James Whalen, a slot typereceiver. He is about the same size Whalen was when he walked through my doorthree years ago and he seems to have that same passion for catching the ball.He was not a guy who was widely recruited, but he was a guy who we felt reallyfit into our offense. He has good speed, much like Whalen. He’s not a burner,but for the position that he is going to play, he is going to be faster thanmost guys at that spot.”
“We also have Antwoine Lias who has a combination of good speed and size andwas highly recruited. He is really a good guy in running with the ballafter hecatches it.”
“Eric Arling was a tight end who came to our camp last year and really had alot of big-time visits over the summer. He was at UCLA the day before he camehere. He really impressed us with his hands, his mobility and his bodycontrol.”
On getting four recruits out of Memphis:
“Memphis has always been a place that we tried to get into, I just think ithastaken us this long for us to sell ourselves to them. Tim Keane and Tommy Adamsought to be commended for their efforts down there. It is a place that playsgood football, and they have turned out a lot of good players, so it’s a placethat we’ll definitely want to go back to. I think we had to prove ourselves alittle bit and show that we were going to be a factor in the SEC race. We’vebeen to back-to-back bowls and I think we’ve shown them that we are seriousabout what we are doing. I’m not going anywhere, I’m going to stay here, wehadto fight off a lot of rumors the first year we went down there.”
On the offensive linemen:
“We are real happy with them. (Josh) Jaggers is a guy we are going to look atat center, we think he can play that and he is pretty enthusiastic about doingthat. And that gives us five offensive linemen to work with. They all comewithgreat credentials. Obviously Antonio Hall was highly recruited. I think MattHuff and Stephen Moody are more the sleepers of the group, but they are bothyoung guys who are going to grow a lot. They were recruited by a lot ofschoolsand they are both going to be good players. Jason Rollins, along with Antonio,is one of the five offensive linemen for the Big 33 game up in Ohio so I thinkit speaks well for all of them.”
On this year’s class compared to last year’s:
“I think (this year’s group) is about equal, we just don’t have as many thisyear, but speed-wise I think we did a good job this year.”
On Anthony Stevenson:
“Anthony is a good, solid running back who is a hard-nosed guy kind of anArtose Pinner-type back. We like those type of straight line runners and he isa big guy, he’s already over 200 pounds, but he can get bigger. It’s importantfor our guys to be pass blockers as well as runners and he is a very unselfishplayer so I think he will do a real great job.”
On Antonio Hall:
“Antonio is a great player, I was just hoping we could get in on him. I thinkGuy Morriss did just an absolutely fabulous job recruiting him and putting ourbest foot forward in terms of what we could do for him at Kentucky. As far asbeing a player he is just huge and he was highly successful on both sides ofthe ball. He’s just a big guy who can move, has a passion for the game andplays that way.”
On the number of recruits:
“I thought that we would sign 17 players, but when it came down to it, we justhad a couple extra scholarships. So we decided to oversign a little bit, butyou have to do that in order for it to balance out.”
On kicker Dustin Wynn:
“We are going to look at him at both (placekicking and punting). We reallylikehim, he is a big guy, he has the ability to put distance on the ball doingeither thing. He is just going to learn our program and our methods and be agood student. The good thing is that he is here now so we have the spring towork with him. We will allow him to compete at both spots, but the decision asto which one he concentrates on will be decided by Coach (Claude) Bassett.”
On DT Jeremy Caudill:
“He is just a great player. I think one of the reasons why he can come in andcontribute early is that, much like Kip Sixbery this year, he is coming inwitha strength level that will allow him to compete. And with linemen that is thenumber one consideration. He’ll have to adjust to the college game, but Ithinkhe’ll be alright. He is a powerlifter and he’ll probably win in the stateor beclose. He can probably bench press more than a lot of our players rightnow. Hehas been in our camp for the last three years and I don’t think that he hasever run any slower that a 4.6, he has incredible quickness for a guy asbig ashe is.”
“Certainly our recruiting has gotten better every year. We want to be able toget into the SEC hunt for a championship and you have to have the playersto dothat. We think that this class really caps off the last two years. We’ve gotall 85 scholarships filled up and those spots are filled with guys who werecruited and who we really like so it really gives us our first chance tocompete for that.”
“We went into this recruiting season saying, offensively, we basically neededto recruit awhole offense of around 11 guys and try to get somebody at every position,particularly in the offensive line. On defense we narrowed it down to specificneeds in the defensive line and corner. We really didn’t really know if wasallgoing to fall into place like it did, but Coach Bassett and all of his staffhave done a wonderful job these last two weeks. I probably would have beensatisfied by signing about 16 guys and filling some of the needs, for instancethe offensive line. But the last two weeks we were able to hold onto some guyslike Dewayne Robertson, who committed late, that in the last couple ofyears wehave been losing.”
