By LARRY VAUGHT
He’s realistic about how difficult it can be for a true freshman linebacker to play in the Southeastern Conference. However, Trevin Wallace is also confident he can be a contributor for Kentucky this season.
“I know it is pretty tough to do as a freshman and that most freshmen playing in the SEC are probably at safety, corner, running back, maybe receiver,” Wallace said. “The SEC is the top conference at linebacker. Playing as a freshman is kind of ridiculous right now.
“It is crazy but I feel real comfortable about it. I feel I can play. I want to play. However, I am also fine with getting gradually brought in at the middle of the season to get experience.”
The 6-2, 220-pound Wallace says senior middle linebacker DeAndre Square has helped him more than any other player and has become his mentor.
“He is real smart and someone I really look up to,” Wallace said.
Square likes what he has seen from Wallace.
“I like his size and love his confidence. He also listens and is not a guy who thinks he knows it all. I think he’ll be an important part of the defense,” Square said.
Linebacker coach Jon Sumrall recruited Wallace out of Georgia and said as soon as he signed that he anticipated he might play this season — and that was before an injury to Ole Miss transfer Jacquez Jones gave Wallace a chance to work with the first-team defense in practice last week. Wallace was the top-rated defensive player in UK’s 2021 signing class and 247Sports Composite Rankings rated him as the fourth best defensive player ever to sign with UK.
“He’s not only a great player but he busts his butt to prepare and get ready,” Sumrall said. “He’s also really, really smart. He knows what he is doing.”
Wallace has run the 100-meter dash in 10.8 seconds and the 200 in 22.09. His best long jump was 23 feet, 4 1/2 inches.
“I just ran track to help my football speed because if somebody is faster than you and you want to keep up with them you have to get faster,” Wallace said.
He also won the state powerlifting competition in his weight class with a power clean of 335 pounds.
“I stay in the weight room a lot. Every chance I get I am in the weight room working. There are no off days for football. You have to work no matter what,” Wallace said.
His final game at Wayne County High School he had to start at quarterback and responded by rushing 28 times for 382 yards and one score. He also played every snap at linebacker.
“I never thought I would rush for that many yards or carry the ball that many times,” Wallace said. “I played quarterback but only threw the ball once. The team we were playing knew what was going to happen and still couldn’t stop it. I think about that game sometimes but that is in the past and I am focusing on the present.”
Wallace admits he had some “ups and downs” with high school coach Ken Cribb when he was a freshman and sophomore before starting to “click” his junior season when he only got to play four games due to injury.
“Our relationship started slow but it got there. It ended up a great relationship and I figured out my senior year that I needed to study the playbook a lot more and that definitely is true here,” he said.
His mother and sister both have had huge impacts on his work ethic. His mother was manager at a McDonald’s in his hometown and he worked there part-time.
“I didn’t want to work but I had to learn how to manage money. If I was late or messed up, I heard about it when I came home. She would call me at 5 o’clock if I was supposed to be at work at 6. She was hard on me but I learned you work for your stuff and don’t ask for nothing,” Wallace said.
His sister served in the military. She’s home now but “taught” him a lot of life lessons.
“As long as I had her and my mom, I didn’t have to worry,” he said. “They kept me straight and I doubt if that will ever change.”
Kentucky has a lot of young defensive lineman that coordinator Brad White is counting on this year but he also says senior Abule Abadi-Fitzgerald is going to be a “major factor” for UK.
“He is a massive individual,” said White. “He is starting to understand what we are asking of those guys.”
He played in 13 games as a redshirt sophomore in 2019 and played in five games last season.
He came to the United States from Nigeria and was always a basketball player until he tried football in high school. He had 39 tackles, nine tackles for loss, two sacks, 13 quarterback hurries, two forced fumbles and one interception as a senior in high school.
“Early on it was very developmental for him (at UK),” White said. “The big thing for him is he just needs to continue to try and stay healthy. If he stays healthy, he is a guy who is going to be able to help us.”
White remains optimistic that freshman Jamarius Dinkins and Kahlil Saunders can contribute along with a group of second-year players — Justin Rogers, Sam Anaele, Octavious Oxendine and Josaih Hayes.
“They are all making strides and coming into their own,” White said. “Each has to find some sort of niche. They are all unique and different in their own way. Throw in Kahlil who has got length and a little twitch in his body that you want. He’s a young pup but both he and Jamarius are what you are looking for. They step off the bus and look like SEC linemen.
“Coach (Anwar) Stewart hammers these guys on technique and they are all so much sounder. (Senior nose guard) Marquan McCall has been such a great leader and pushing and demanding so much from all of them. That’s why I feel we can roll bodies in and not lose all that much.”
Sometimes I think we can all forget that major college athletes are not that much different from a lot of us.
Sophomore libero Riah Walker could be a key player for the UK’s defending national champion volleyball team. That doesn’t scare her. But guess what does? Frogs.
“I hate them. That is my biggest fear,” Walker said. “Growing up in Florida, frogs have always been traumatic to me. I have just always been scared of them. They are just slimy and jump on you. Fortunately I have not seen any frogs in Kentucky and hope I don’t.”
Yet she had no fear at age 7 when her sisters influenced her to start playing volleyball.
“My two older sisters started playing when they were young and I wanted to be like them, so I started playing,” Walker said. “My older sisters tried basketball and soccer and didn’t like them. I just went to volleyball.
“I played with my second oldest sister in high school and club because I always played up. She reminds me of (former UK All-American) Madison (Lilley). She was a setter and was always on everyone. She was tougher on me because I was her sister but that gave me thick skin.”
Her oldest sister played beach volleyball at Florida International University.
“I played beach volleyball when I was younger but liked indoor more, so I just stuck with that and I am glad I did,” Walker said.
One receiver who impressed offensive coordinator Liam Coen before preseason practice even started was Chauncey Magwood, who started 58 straight games at Georgia powerhouse Lee County High School.
“Coming into ninth grade I was not expecting that. Playing in summer camps I stepped it up, somebody got hurt and I ended up being one of the receivers. It prepared me for this,” Magwood said.
Coen was impressed with the way Magwood worked to learn the playbook during the summer and he has continued to impress in practice to where he likely will be in the playing rotation Sept. 4 against Louisiana-Monroe.
He says what he went through as a high school freshman has helped him at UK.
“You have players from all over the country and I have to work to be in a position to play. If I don’t put in the work, I am not going to play. I get that,” Magwood said.
Magwood had to move to quarterback his senior season. He threw for 938 yards and 12 scores and also ran for 643 yards and six scores. He caught 53 passes for 700 yards and 10 scores as a junior, had 68 catches for 958 yards and seven scores in 2019, and even had 33 catches for 388 yards as a freshman.
“My (high school) coach talked to me and said Lynn Bowden did the same thing his last year (at Kentucky) to help the team by moving to quarterback,” Magwood said. “We ran a lot but I didn’t run a lot myself like Lynn Bowden did. We had a great backfield and our coach didn’t want other teams to just expect me to run.”
Magwood was still ranked as one of the nation’s top 100 receivers in his recruiting class by ESPN and Rivals despite not playing receiver in 2020.
“Speed. I have strong hands,” Magwood said when asked what makes him a good receiver. “I was a quarterback last season and have not caught balls for a year and had not been working on catching a whole year.
“But one of my best things is I have strong hands and I am quick off the line. I am trying to get back quick off the break like I was in high school.”
Linebackers coach Jon Sumrall recruited Magwood. The two had a “great” relationship but Sumrall also told Magwood a new offensive coordinator would be coming.
“That got me here and now I love coach Coen,” Magwood said. “Look at the wide receivers he helped coach with the (Los Angeles) Rams. He is the best coach I have ever been around.”
Quote of the Week: “We all know what he can do. Look at Auburn, Ole Miss and halfway through the Mississippi State games last year and he was playing as well as any defensive lineman in the SEC before he got banged up. His body, his conditioning are at an elite level. We need him to perform at an elite level,” UK defensive coordinator Brad White on senior defensive lineman Josh Paschal.
Quote of the Week 2: “I think this is one of my favorite parts of the year. The first few weeks on campus are always the most fun. You are meeting freshmen, meeting transfers, meeting new people. It is just a fresh start and you are ready to see what next season will bring,” UK All-American catcher Kayla Kowalik on school starting at UK.
Quote of the Week 3: “Kentucky gives me so many clothes. I have all kinds of brand new Nike clothes and I am going to wear that if you give me new clothes. Kentucky makes me happy and I am happy to represent Kentucky that way,” UK golfer Jensen Castle on wearing UK gear during her U.S. Women’s Amateur championship win.