By LARRY VAUGHT
Lexington Christian Academy junior Cutter Boley is a gifted quarterback, one of the best in the nation according to every recruiting service and the bevy of major college coaches that recruited him.
The 6-5, 205-pound Boley verbally committed to Kentucky last week over Tennessee, Michigan, Penn State and Florida State — the other schools in his final five.
However, what says a lot about Boley is who attended his commitment ceremony. Current Lincoln County coach Josh Jaggers, a former UK offensive lineman, coached Boley during the 2020 and 2021 seasons at LaRue County. He was at LCA for the announcement.
“No way was I going to miss this,” Jaggers said. “He’s a special player and young man.”
Taylor County junior offensive lineman Hayes Johnson, the first UK commitment in the 2024 recruiting class, also made the drive to Lexington. He arrived just a few minutes before Boley made his decision public but stayed to visit with him after the ceremony.
“He’s going to be special for our recruiting class. Everybody likes him,” Johnson said.
Boley’s sister, Erin, a three-time Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year and 2016 Gatorade National Player of the Year, made the drive from Atlanta where she now lives to be there with her brother.
“It’s important for me to be here,” Erin, who played basketball at Notre Dame and Oregon, said. “No way was I going to miss this. I don’t get to see all his games (in person) but I was not going to miss his big day.”
LCA coach Doug Charles says Boley truly checks all the boxes for a special player on and off the field.
“This will give you an idea of the character of this kid. We had UAB (coaches) come in this morning to watch one of our kids and wanted to see him catch (passes),” Charles said. “Now this is a pretty big day for Cutter and he was out there at 7 o’clock this morning throwing balls for a kid trying to get a scholarship and then took his linemen out to breakfast this morning before this commitment.
“He is the real deal as a player and person. Not just on the field but off. We just tell him not to change and he will be awesome.”
He would be the highest rated quarterback to sign with Kentucky since Tim Couch in 1996. Couch went on to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 NFL draft.
Boley had contemplated using his COVID year to be a 2025 recruit to make sure he was prepared to be a big-time college quarterback. He decided to back into the 2024 class based on feedback he got from college coaches this spring.
“Some of the coaches at Penn State acted like they’d even take me as a 2023. A year ago today, I didn’t know where my body would be physically and if I could play in college. But I feel I’m prepared to play at the collegiate level now,” Boley said. “I just feel like I’m ready to go. I just want to get there as soon as I can (he plans to enroll at UK in January), start learning the offense, start learning the playbook.”
Offensive coordinator Liam Coen obviously believes so. He started recruiting Boley in 2021 when he was named UK’s offensive coordinator, stayed in touch even when he rejoined the Los Angeles Rams for the 2022 season and made Boley a priority when he returned to UK in January.
“It was Coen coming back, building that relationship with him. They’ve got something special going on over there with the offense. I just wanted to be a part of it,” Boley said about why he picked Kentucky. “I feel like I grew up a Kentucky fan. I’ve always bled blue since I was young. It’s definitely just going to be nice to represent everyone out here that’s supported me.”
If Coen had not returned to lead the UK offense, Boley probably would be playing in the Southeastern Conference but not at Kentucky.
“Tennessee was ahead for a while,” Boley admitted. “Michigan, all those top five schools, Florida State, they all really made a push for me and they all recruited me really hard.”
Boley started working months ago to position himself to be an early graduate so he could enroll at UK in January. His father, Scott, said it was not always easy to graduate early at private schools.
“He got some online stuff to do this summer but he’s almost a 4.0 (grade-point average) student. His idea was to find the perfect fight and if it was better to be a 2024 recruit, fine,” Scott Boley said. “For Kentucky, he feels like being a 2024 guy is the right move.”
How does John Calipari view his future? That was a question asked by college basketball broadcaster/reporter John Fanta during a recent interview with the Kentucky coach.
Here is how Calipari answered:
“I’ve got six years on a contract. Will I stay longer? I don’t know. But I want to be here. It hasn’t changed. The best players still want to come here. I don’t blame those who don’t want to come here, I don’t make it personal,” Calipari told Fanta.
“I’m at Kentucky, which is an unbelievable stage. Every year we are here, we have a shot to win a national title. I look at this run and say, ‘Let’s do some special things.’ The families, my appreciation for them is they trust me with their child. If it was the drudgery of this, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
“You’ve got to know every arena we go in is sold out. Why? Because they’ve got a chance to beat Kentucky today. My comment to my team: ‘Let’s ruin their weekend.'”
Alex Afari played in all 13 games for Kentucky last season with three starts. He had 21 tackles, three tackles for loss, one sack and one quarterback hurry. However, there’s not been a lot of hype about the defensive back from Cincinnati going into his sophomore season.
Afari, a four-star recruit and top 225 player nationally in his recruiting class, is “just not being talked about enough” according to former UK all-SEC running back Anthony White who now has a podcast and a Sunday morning radio show in Lexington.
“Afari does a lot of things very well but there might be some things about playing in space and schematic things holding him back,” White said. “It’s very hard to find a guy who can play in the box and take on blocks and also cover in space. Those guys are rare.
“He’s a very athletic guy but he has some work to do. However, he could be that hybrid player that does not have to cover a lot in space because he is kind of a tweeter right now.”
White credits Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White with being versatile enough to adapt to what players do best.
“Brad White does not get nearly enough credit. If a player has a weakness, he schemes around to get the best out of his guy,” Anthony White said. “That’s why he never really gets caught with his pants down because he schemes for what he has and puts guys in the best position to make plays.”
Blair Green came back to Kentucky for a super senior year after missing the 2021-22 season with an Achilles tendon injury. She averaged 7.8 points and 2.5 rebounds per game last season, not the numbers she was hoping for.
However, Green apparently played most of last season with a torn meniscus that required surgery on her knee after the season ended.
“I am trying to recover from this injury now,” said Green. “I probably had the injury for the whole season. We were never exactly sure what it was. It was pretty aggravating and after the season we got the MRI that showed the torn meniscus. I was on crutches for about four weeks (after surgery) and that was miserable. Finally I got to where I have just been in a brace but really I am just glad to get it fixed.”
Green joked everyone told her she had a “pretty big pain tolerance” but she was determined not to miss another season.
“I really do not know how I did it. I was just giving it all I had. I was hurting one game but I told the coaches just to keep me in and I could do it,” Green said. “I was praying the Lord would help me get through the tough times.”
She was limited in practice and toward the end of the season rode a bike for conditioning when the team was running even though she wanted to be running with teammates.
However, there could be one upside to her second straight year dealing with an injury — she hopes maybe it will bring good luck to her fiancé, CJ Fredrick. He dealt with injuries the last two years at UK and has transferred to Cincinnati for the 2023-24 season.
“If I had to have the bad juju for him (Fredrick) to have a healthy season, then it was worth it,” Green said. “Right now I am just glad I am getting healed up. It’s great not to be hurting again.”
The addition of running back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye of North Carolina State via the transfer portal last week might be a bigger addition than it seems for Kentucky football.
He had 55 carries for 305 yards and three touchdowns in a limited role last year along with 12 catches for 148 yards and one score. The 6-0, 210-pound Sumo-Karngbaye picked UK over South Carolina, Missouri and Colorado and will have two seasons of eligibility left. He was a three-star prospect in high school and No. 23 player in the state of New Jersey according to Rivals.com. His junior season his high school team went 12-1 when he ran for 648 yards and 11 touchdowns while averaging 10 yards per run. He also had 53 tackles and two interceptions. His senior season the team played only three games due to COVID.
Apparently South Carolina was “hoping” to land Sumo-Karngbaye because it has only one returning scholarship running back and a Division II transfer going into the 2023 season. The Gamecocks had been targeting Sumo-Karngbaye and Logan Diggs of Notre Dame, who committed to LSU a few hours after Sumo-Karngbaye picked UK.
South Carolina “Fansided” writer Kevin Miller called it a “massive blow” for South Carolina losing both potential running backs in such a short period. He wrote it “would be disingenuous to say that things were looking good for the fall with where things stand today” for the Gamecocks.
So not only does Sumo-Karngbaye give Kentucky’s backfield needed depth, it also kept an SEC rival from adding a player it needed.
Kentucky baseball goes into this week’s SEC Tournament with a 36-17 record (16-14 SEC) and assured of a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
Pitcher Alex Degen recently was named to the SEC Community Service Team for the third time in his career. Degen has volunteered 175 hours of work with the Ronald McDonald House, more than 100 hours of work with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and more than 150 hours of work for other various outreaches. He is also a member of UK’s prestigious Frank G. Ham Society of Character.
The UK baseball player was also one of two UK students to receive UK’s highest honor for humanitarian efforts — the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. The Sullivan Award recognizes those “who exhibit Sullivan’s ideals of heart, mind, and conduct as evince a spirit of love for and helpfulness to other men and women.”
The New Jersey native recently medically retired from baseball but stayed with the team as a student assistant coach. He finished his career with a 3-1 record, one save and 4.30 ERA in three seasons.
He graduated with a graduate certificate in nonprofit management from the Martin School of Public Policy and an undergraduate certificate in financial planning from the Gatton College of Business and Economics. He earned a BA degree in social work in 2021 from the College of Social Work and a BS in business administration in 2022 from the Gatton College of Business and Economics.
Quote of the Week: “I feel like Cal does a great job at preparing us for the next level, as far as putting in sets and using NBA terminology. They’re slept on, but they go pretty high in the draft, as well,” Kentucky guard Cason Wallace on why so many guards from UK have emerged as NBA stars.
Quote of the Week 2: “I think it was almost something out of a movie. I definitely think Year 25 for me is probably the best year that I’ve had in my life and I just want to keep this feeling going,” former UK star De’Aaron Fox of the Sacramento Kings on getting married, having a baby, making the NBA All-Star Game and being named All-NBA in one year.
Quote of the Week 3: “He is a tough cover for anybody because he’s constantly in attack mode and he does everything so well on the basketball floor. He’s the true definition of an all-around player,” Miami Heat guard Jimmy Butler on New York Knicks’ Julius Randle.