By LARRY VAUGHT
If you are a high school kicker/punter in Montana, less than ideal weather conditions are the norm.
“I had to shovel the (football) field last winter to kick multiple times,” said Jacob Kauwe, a recent University of Kentucky commit from Billings, Mont. “School got cancelled one time when we had a negative 55 wind chill. It’s a different beast out here but it does really prepare you to kick in harsh conditions.”
Kauwe didn’t shovel any entire football field but just clearing out spots where he wanted to kick from was difficult enough that he needed help.
“I brought my mom out a few times with me. We took a couple of shovels and just started digging. I had picked my spots out before that I wanted to kick from to get my reps,” the UK commit said. “Shoveling was a nice warmup before I kicked and I was lucky my mom came with me to help.”
Kauwe obviously is looking forward to kicking and competing in the Southeastern Conference. He could be the first athlete from Montana on scholarship in any sport at UK but that did not surprise him.
He went to Kohl’s Kicking Camp and got on the “radar” of college coaches. He said UK special teams coach Jay Boulware and along with special teams quality control coach Mike Priefer liked his camp film more than anyone else’s film.
“They went through every kick I made in high school and in Kohl’s competition,” Kauwe said. “Coach Boulware made a special trip out and watched a workout. He did an evaluation on site and said, ‘We love you and think you are special.’ That’s when we set up an official visit because he made it clear I was his dude and he believed in me.”
Kauwe liked the plan Boulware and Priefer laid out for him to get better and conveyed that to his parents in their first conversation. He hit 80-yard kickoffs at Kohl’s Kicking Camp and also had a 70-yard punt with 4.4 second hang time.
“It’s about me getting more consistent. There are so many technical things to work on to max my craft so I can be the greatest kicker I possibly can be,” Kauwe said. “There are always new levels to reach.”
Like many kickers, he has a soccer background but he says kicking a soccer ball and a football are really different.
“I had to fight off a lot of older soccer habits. It was more of a transition to kicking the football than I thought. But I’ve been kicking now since eighth grade,” Kauwe said.
He calls himself a “kicker at heart” but is more than willing to also compete for the punting job at Kentucky if he’s good enough in the future.
“I am a kicker who can put. That is what made Kentucky so interested in me,” Kauwe said. “I talked to Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Oregon State and TCU and they were almost all looking at me as a punter who can kick. But I really love kicking.”
He admits Kentucky was not on his radar when Boulware first reached out to him.
“I knew a little about Kentucky basketball and I knew (former UK quarterback) Will Levis and that he put weird things in his coffee,” Kauwe said. “But I did my research.”
Kauwe is not a Montana cowboy-type.
“I have friends who spend time hunting elk and going to rodeos,” Kauwe said. “I grew up in Utah and Iowa. I am not a true Montanan. We moved here in sixth grade. But I won’t roll into Kentucky with a cowboy hat and boots.”
Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault had a unique player comparison for Kentucky freshman guard Cason Wallace. He compared him to former NFL Hall of Fame defensive back Ed Reed.
Reed was a defensive ball hawk and that stood out to the Thunder coach as he evaluated Wallace before he was the 10th pick in the draft.
“He’s just got a beat on the ball. He’s got great discipline. He’s where he’s supposed to be. He’s not reckless,” Daigneault said. “He’s not doing his own thing, but when he smells the ball, he’s a hawk on the ball.
“He played football coming up, and he looks like a free safety out there.”
Thunder executive vice president Sam Presti also liked Wallace’s defensive tenacity.
“Cason is a quintessential two-way player, somebody that we are really excited to have,” Presti said at Wallace’s introductory press conference. “He plays no-agenda basketball, and that’s one of the things that really attracted us to him.
“This guy got drafted in the Top-10 by just being an incredible team player, a guy that makes the right play all the time, and I think that’s a great lesson for a lot of young players out there.”
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said not to discount Wallace’s offensive skills because he is a great defender.
“He’s good off the ball, he is excellent on the ball and he can play the point (and) off-guard,” Bilas said during the draft. “He’s a good shooter, a good shooter in the mid-range, he can knock it down from three and he’s just got a very steady game.
“I think he’s a big-time player. Is he the type of guy that’s going to go out and get you 40 in a game or be spectacular in one area of the game? I wouldn’t say so. He’s just really good in every aspect of the game. He’s a winner and a leader..
The Thunder will have summer league games in Las Vegas July 7-17 and Wallace said it did not take long to know he was glad to be part of this team.
“Being on the outside looking in, you can see how much the players enjoy being here,” Wallace said. “On the court, they are always having fun. They look like they are free. They are out there and they all look like they’re together.”
Wallace credited Kentucky coach John Calipari for giving him the freedom to improve like he has other UK guards before him who are now succeeding in the NBA.
“On the court, Cal puts us in good situations to display what we’re good at. If it’s something we’re not so good at, he tells us to try to stay away from it but he still gives us the freedom to display who we are,” Wallace said. “Off of the court, we have a great medical team, a great team to help us talk to media so I feel like they set us up with a pretty good platform.”
Playing professionally overseas for two years was “tough” in some ways for Madison Lilley, the former national player of the year who led Kentucky to the 2020 national volleyball championship.
Now the Kansas native is back in Lexington on coach Craig Skinner’s staff.
“It’s a great chance to take a break from playing professionally, and playing in Europe, to give me a sense of direction if I miss playing or not and if I don’t, that’s okay,” Lilley said. “This is really a good way not to just cut volleyball cold turkey and give me a good idea for what I envision for my future.”
Lilley said winning the national championship in April and then being in Germany in August to start her professional career was a little different than she expected.
“There were 10 nationalities on my team. Six languages were spoken. The first week at practice everyone was speaking all those languages at once,” she said. “I was one of two Americans on the team. I took Spanish in high school but that was it.
“The coach was from Spain. He stopped practice and said we were either speaking English or Serbian because we had three Serbians on the team. I thought in what world could this happen. I quickly realized this is serious. That was all just crazy to me.
“It was a gigantic adjustment period but it was also kind of funny. Things happen over there that would never happen here.”
Kentucky volleyball also faces an adjustment period this year. First, Anders Nelson, Skinner’s associate head coach for seven years and staff member for 11 years, is gone. He’s now the head coach at Vanderbilt while Ben Josephson is UK’s new associate coach after a 16-year stint as the head coach of the Trinity Western men’s team.
“It’s different for sure. Ben is awesome and adds so much value to us. He looks at things differently,” Lilley said. “He is awesome with our team. The players really respect him. Sometimes adding things and wording things differently helps and our girls will be volleyball players because of things they learn from him.”
Kentucky also won’t be playing in Memorial Coliseum this season because of renovations being made to the facility. Instead, UK will play its home matches at Rupp Arena.
“I am excited for it. Memorial will be brand new and better. Not all change is bad,” she said, “Our team is ready to take the challenge. We will be on the road a lot. This is an opportunity to kick things into high gear as we change our identity the next couple of years not playing in Memorial.”
Connecticut offensive lineman Jadon Lafontant had an immediate connection with UK offensive line coach Zach Yenser the first time he met him at a high school football showcase.
“We started talking about food and I knew immediately that was my guy,” the 6-3, 315-pound Lafontant said after making his verbal commitment to Kentucky. “That was something different coming from a coach and let me know I could go to him any time I wanted to talk about anything.”
He also connected quickly with UK offensive coordinator Liam Coen and receivers coach Scott Woodward, who both have northeast roots and played football together at the University of Massachusetts.
His numerous scholarship offers included Vanderbilt and Dartmouth.
“Academics are a big part of my life. That’s just me,” Lafontant said. “My parents always told me if I wanted to play football in college and the NFL I had to get my academics first. The NFL has always been the dream. I didn’t want to go to school anywhere that my parents did not like and Kentucky is right because I can focus on football and academics. My mom could see that immediately.”
Lafontant transferred to Brunswick School last season and did not wrestle like he did at his previous school when he reached the state tournament.
“I am old school. I did wrestling, made state and was just a big dude handling people,” Lafontant said. “Wrestling definitely helped me physically and mentally with my discipline. It’s also even harder than football. Practices are really hard.”
He also played high school basketball as a freshman.
“I could knock people around but basketball really was not my sport,” he said.
Quote of the Week: “Kentucky fans should go into the season cautious. There are alway growing pains for any college freshman. But I want to encourage Kentucky fans to be patient with this group because if they buy into what the coaches want, I think they can win a lot of games. I know Kentucky fans are frustrated but with the amount of talent this team has it is way too early to write off Kentucky,” Yahoo/Rivals national basketball writer Krysten Peek on UK dropping out of some preseason top 25 polls.
Quote of the Week 2: “My dad takes me and my little brother to the beach to get our speed work in the sand. Then we go to the weight room and do more explosive work and then football practice. Sometimes later we hit the hills for more work,” UK running back commit Tovani Mizell of Ft. Lauderdale on his training regimen.
Quote of the Week 3: “It’s obviously no secret we didn’t perform well in the SEC last year, so really there is only going up from there. I think everybody kind of has that sour taste in their mouth and it just makes us want to work harder to be better this season. That’s all we can do,” Kentucky graduate senior Emma King on the upcoming women’s basketball season.