By LARRY VAUGHT
Elijah Groves likes to stay busy — and productive — on the football field.
The 6-4, 220-pound Kentucky commit from Cross Plains, Tenn., will play punter, receiver, outside linebacker, safety and special teams. He had 59 tackles, including four for loss, and two interceptions in 2022 and ran for 209 yards and four touchdowns to help his team reach the third round of the playoffs.
In his team’s 20-7 win last week over Monterey, he caught three passes for 82 yards and one touchdown, ran once for 10 yards and intercepted a pass.
“I hate watching. I want to be on the field,” said Groves. “Kentucky is recruiting me as an outside linebacker, kind of a Josh Allen type player. I know I will need to put on some more weight and more than likely will have a redshirt year to let me get bigger and stronger.”
Groves said he connected quickly with UK defensive coordinator Brad White, wanted to play in the Southeastern Conference and wanted to be close to home (he lives about 30 minutes from Nashville) so his parents could see him play in college.
“My family and friends knew it was going to be Kentucky after I made my visit,” Groves said. “They were all telling me blue looked the best on me.”
His other two finalists were Purdue and North Carolina State but the four-star linebacker had 15 offers.
He says football runs in his family (his father played football while his mother played basketball and soccer). His cousin, Taylor Groves, plays at Mississippi. Groves’ younger brothers Isaiah (6-0, 185 pounds) and Zach (6-4, 225 pounds). Both brothers also have offers from Kentucky. Isaiah is a running back and Zach a defensive end at East Robertson High School. All three brothers plan to be at Kroger Field for games this season.
“We all push each other. Isaiah is a really good running back and I have to hit him every day in practice. Zach is a big defensive lineman and helps me get off blocks,” Elijah said. “Me and Isaiah share the ball. He gets about 70 percent of the carries and does not play D (defense). Me and Zach have similar styles in that we both like to get to the ball and make something happen.”
Zach has offers from Tennessee, Purdue and NC State along with Kentucky. Isaiah also has a NC State offer to go with the one from Kentucky and is a top 20 player in Tennessee. He ran for 201 yards in East Robertson’s win last week.
“I just leave him (Isaiah) alone and will let him go into his senior year and see what he does,” Elijah said.
Elijah makes a lot happen in basketball and track, too. He averaged 19.2 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game in basketball last year and went over the 1,000-point career mark. His team won state when he was a sophomore and lost in the first round of the state last year.
“Because I play basketball some people think I won’t be physical on the football field but I am. I love to hit,” he said.
He has personal-best times of 11.84 and 23.90 seconds in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, respectively, and cleared 5 feet, 8 inches in the high jump.
Elijah admits he was a Tennessee fan growing up and did not know much about Kentucky football.
“One day one of our coaches told me one of the Kentucky coaches was watching practice. I had a good practice, they talked to me and compared me to Josh Allen. Late that night they called and made an offer,” he said.
“I knew Josh Allen played for the (Jacksonville) Jaguars but I didn’t know he went to Kentucky. I did not know he was (national defensive) player of the year until I researched him. But I like having expectations like that on me. That’s how it has always been and makes me the player I am.”
Kentucky offensive line coach Zach Yenser appreciates what UK’s defensive linemen do daily to test his players even when they might win the line of scrimmage battle.
“If we can protect against those guys and run the ball we can do it against anybody in the SEC,” Yenser said. “I truly believe that.”
Yenser would even like to see Deone Walker, a freshman all-American in 2022, flip over and play on the offensive line at times because of his power, size and agility.
“The thing about Deone is he is one of my favorite human beings that I have ever been around,” Yenser said. “He is freaky talented but such a good dude. He’s not prideful. He’s very humble.
“He is the type of guy who can succeed and have a long NFL career because he has special talent. He is so tough to block one on one for anybody. That dude is a very good player and is only going to get better. He makes us better every day that we have to go against him because there’s nobody better that we will play all year.”
Kentucky associate coach Vince Marrow is the team’s NFL liaison and even though Walker will not be eligible for the draft until after his junior year numerous NFL scouts are already asking about him.
“All the scouts talk about how athletic he is. We have some pretty good sophomores who are going to be good NFL prospects but Deone is a guy you cannot help but notice,” Marrow said. “He was a real problem in (preseason) camp.”
Marrow compared Walker to what former college and NBA players faced when they tried to defend Shaquille O’Neal because of his size.
“He’s only going to be in school three years with Stew (UK defensive line coach Anwar Stewart) getting little things out of him so he can go more plays instead of just three or four plays. At the next level he is going to be really good.”
Kentucky coach John Calipari made a rare August appearance on ESPN SportsCenter to promote his team to a national audience and left no doubt that he believes the Cats could be special this season.
“My best teams have been young players, talented, with veterans who were also talented. And you mix them together. We have that this year,” the UK coach said. “We got good young players, good young guards, two seven-footers — they’ll tell you they’re 7-2. So we’ve got some size.
“I’m liking what I’m seeing. And more importantly, they’re really getting along together. So you’ve got a young group, but they’re really excited and it should be fun.”
Kentucky has won just one NCAA Tournament game in the last three years and not been to the Final Four since 2015. Big Blue Nation expects a Final Four run but Calipari warned even with the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class it is not easy to do that.
“Our league is way better, so we’re gonna be prepared to go into March. You’ve got to be healthy. And again, the talent where you have a couple guys that can just take over a game, where you have great rim protection, those have been my Final Four teams,” Calipari said.
“So I’m looking at this group and our whole thing is, ‘Let’s just get better every day. We showed this summer what we can do. Now let’s get stronger, let’s get more consistent shooting the ball, skill-wise.’
“Young players are not sturdy enough to be really consistent. That’s why it’s really important, the summer and when they return to campus in the fall. This is a good group in that way. I mean, they love being in the gym. I go into my office, and I look out there, four guys are in there playing. And they play a lot of pickup, which is really important too.”
Since 2001 only two Kentucky players have had 10 or more sacks in one season. Dennis Johnson had 12 in 2001 and national defensive player of the year Josh Allen had 17 in 2018.
“I didn’t know that. I have never even thought about it,” Johnson, now the head football coach at Woodford County High School, said. “I knew Josh broke the (single-season) record but I thought some other guys since then had 10 or more sacks. That is a really good stat and it is very surprising. I never knew that.”
The only other two players with 10 or more sacks in a single season since 1971 were Chris Ward with 10.5 in 1996 and Dean Wells with 10 in 1992. Jeremy Jarmon (1997) and Oliver Barnett (1988) got close with nine.
“We have had a lot of good players come through UK. Maybe they did not get 10 sacks but hopefully the next one is coming. That really is a shocking stat not to have had more players with 10 sacks in a season,” Johnson said.
“It’s hard to get a sack. People think if you can do this or that you can get a sack. But to get a sack, especially in the SEC, is super duper hard. I never really thought about how hard it is to get a sack or multiple sacks in a game. I guess it was just in my DNA and my dad ingrained in us to rush the passer and that was my job.”
Still the former all-SEC defensive lineman, who ranks fourth on UK’s all-time sacks list with 19, calls it “crazy” that only he and Allen have 10 or more sacks in the last 20 plus years or just four in the last 50 years.
“I am not one to talk about things like that but I guess that is a good stat to remember and know,” he said.
Call it the Liam Coen Effect for the way Kentucky football continues to attract high profile recruits. Recently 6-1, 165-pound four-star receiver Hartley Gilmore of Florida gave his verbal commitment to UK.
He picked UK over Penn State, Texas A&M, Alabama, Michigan, Florida, Florida State, Miami (Fla.) and others. He’s just the third top 300 receiver recruited by Stoops (the other two were Lynn Bowden and Barion Brown).
“I think he will fit really well in coach Liam Coen’s offense,” said Florida running back Tovani Mizell, a high three-star prospect and earlier UK commit. “He will be a great compliment to Cutter (Boley) and also open up the run game with his ability to take the top off the defense.”
Boley is the Lexington Christian Academy quarterback and No. 1 rated player in Kentucky who is also a Kentucky commit. Boley targeted Gilmore as a future teammate almost immediately after picking Kentucky.
Gilmore met Boley on his visit in June and the two have talked on social media.
“He did encourage me to come to Kentucky. I have watched him play. He’s a really good player I am excited to play with,” Gilmore said.
Kentucky coach Mark Stoops has already talked to his team often about the new gambling laws that go into effect this month in Kentucky.
“I think it’s just getting so common with the people with the phones and the apps and maybe people doing some things innocently throughout the country and the stories you have seen,” Stoops said about the gambling issues some schools have had.
“We have to really educate them and always have. Going back to when I was a player, (Iowa head coach) Hayden Fry would bring people in and talk to us and educate us on that. We always have done that but I think just with technology and the phone, kids are just so used to doing so many things and it being legal to place bets and prop bets and all those things.
Stoops doesn’t anticipate issues with his team but has made sure his players understand the consequences that come with betting on games.
“I don’t know but I just imagine throughout the country, some of the things that come up, a lot of them are probably just innocent, silly different things they can do,” the Kentucky coach said. “They’re used to doing a lot of things on their phones.”
Quote of the Week: “I want to fulfill my role, whatever is called of me. Whether it’s number 14 receiver on scout team or number one here, it doesn’t matter to me,” former Boyle County receiver Cole Lanter after learning he was now on scholarship at Kentucky.
Quote of the Week 2: “The talent where you have a couple of guys that can just take over a game, where you have great rim protection, those have been my Final Four teams,” John Calipari on ESPN SportsCenter on the upcoming season.
Quote of the Week 3: “My honeymoon was over the day after we got married. I was looking at my phone and recruiting on the honeymoon. She has a background in athletics and knows the deal with me,” UK associate coach Vince Marrow on how much of a break he took from recruiting after he got married this summer.