Kentucky Football Spring Practice Notes: "This passing game is going to be crazy."

The Kentucky football team has officially surpassed the midway point of spring practice. Following practice No. 8, members of the media chatted with safeties coach Josh Christian-Young and a pair of cornerbacks, Terhyon Nichols and Grant Grayton.

When interviewing coaches after practice, they rarely want to single out individuals. It takes much less prying when speaking with their peers.

The reports of Kentucky’s passing attack have the BBN’s attention. This might take it a step further. The players guarding the wide receivers were asked to share what fans will like about the Kentucky offense.

“They’re going to love Shane Carr,” said Grayton. “Shane Carr is very explosive. Kenny Minchey‘s very accurate. The passing game is going to be crazy. The run game is also really good too. Overall, it’s just a really good offense.”

Grayton and Nichols each described Carr as “twitchy,” while Nichols added that DJ Miller and Hardley Gilmore have been a handful. The cornerbacks love how much of the playbook is at their disposal. Jay Bateman is asking them to do more than the previous regime, but Minchey’s accuracy isn’t making their job any easier.

“We haven’t had too many picks.”

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Kentucky Needs the Star to be the Star

The Star position is Jay Bateman’s new addition to the depth chart. The Kentucky defensive coordinator said that the player “needs to be a G.” Christian-Young echoed the sentiment and gave sound reasoning behind the name of the position.

“They’re the star of the show,” said the Kentucky safeties coach. “They’re a little bit of both. They’ve gotta have really good man-to-man skills, they’ve gotta be able to play different zone coverages, they gotta be able to blitz, they gotta be able to fit the run, so I don’t want to call it a hybrid, but it kind of is. They’re like safeties that can tackle but have really good man-to-man skills.”

Watching Tape of a Louisville Loss

Kentucky spring practice is the first opportunity we get to ask players why they decided to transfer to Kentucky or why they decided to stay. Christian-Young, known as Coach CY, said that his first job was recruiting Ty Bryant to stay in Lexington.

It didn’t take a hard sell to bring back Grayton. He knew Bateman during his high school days when the Kentucky defensive coordinator recruited the DMV area. When cornerbacks coach Allen Brown first arrived in Lexington from Cal, he showed Grayton the tape from the Golden Bears’ win over Louisville.

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“They were strapping Louisville down, so I knew he was a good coach. It made me very comfortable coming back.”

Another Demarcus Gardner Shoutout

A player who was on nobody’s radar ahead of Kentucky spring practice continues to pop. Redshirt freshman Demarcus Gardner has been mentioned at least once a week as a cornerback standout. Nichols is the leader in the room, but a couple of second-year players, Gardner and Grayton, are making strong cases to see significant snaps this fall.

Lessons from West Point Taken to Kentucky

Jay Bateman made it clear from the jump that a big reason he chose to come to Kentucky is the opportunity to build his own staff. He wanted to be surrounded by people he was familiar with that all spoke the same football language.

Josh Christian-Young was one of Bateman’s first hires. The two worked together for five years at the United States Military Academy at West Point. That’s not a traditional coaching job. You’re working hand-in-hand with the future Army officers, and learning lessons in leadership from our nation’s best and brightest.

“That standard is the standard, and you can’t come off your standard,” said Christian-Young. “To be around those guys, their wins and losses are a little bit different than our win-losses. But I think just the leadership ability, to be able to trust people; trust but verify is a thing they use a lot there. Sometimes, you gotta be able to trust the people on the ground. The kids are out there doing stuff, they gotta make the calls, and I’m sitting on the sideline with a headset. They’re the ones that are in it.”

Before taking any questions, Christian-Young extended condolences to the two Kentucky natives, Benjamin Pennington and Ashley Pruitt, who were recently killed in action in the Middle East. “We’re the University of Kentucky, but they worked for the United States of America. They did a lot for us, so we think about them and their families as their families transition over to being Gold Star Families.”