Brad White shares excitement for new faces on Kentucky defense

Kentucky football has developed into a powerhouse on the defensive side of the football. While the Wildcats have succeeded with various levels of offensive production, they’ve pretty consistently had stout defense leading the way in the last five years.

Of course, the 2018 group was just stellar, with Josh Allen leading the charge en route to the program’s first 10-win season in the modern era.

However, the 2022 squad was arguably as good and maybe even better on defense than the ’18 team. Last year’s UK defense finished ranked in the top-10 in the country in virtually every stat that measures defensive efficiency and only gave up 25 points or more one time all season.

After 2022, Kentucky lost its two starting corners in White’s system — real tough losses. But UK has sustained such departures and still rebounded. In 2019, after losing the superb cornerback trio of Lonnie Johnson, Chris Westry and Derrick Baity, Kentucky had future NFL players Brandin Echols and Cedrick Dort step up to form a solid CB unit.

This spring, White is in the process, once again, of finding replacements for departed stars in Keidron Smith and Carrington Valentine. This time, he had help from the transfer portal, where White nabbed D-II transfer Jordan Robinson a year ago and then JQ Hardaway (Cincinnati) and Jantzen Dunn (Ohio State) in this cycle.

“It was exciting, you know. I think, again, sort of all three of those, you know, transfers with J-Rob from last year, you talk about JQ and J-Dunn. You know, all three are a little bit unique,” Coach White said of the new guys in a spring practice press conference recently. “But they’ve been competing, they’re putting in time and I can see all of those guys playing. I can see all five of those corners finding their way on the field. You know, whether it be some nickel packages, dime packages, rotational and base and medium, you know.”

White continued, praising the guys’ athleticism.

“The biggest thing is they all just — especially, you know, J-Rob’s been in it for a year, so I think it’s a little bit more comfortable for him. But when you can see, like when when JQ is in a in a call, that he’s really comfortable with, like, his length you can just feel it out there. And, you know, he makes it hard for a quarterback to feel like they want to try to thread that ball. And, you know, then JD’s got some just really sort of special athletic traits.”

As with typical Kentucky cornerbacks, these imports all have some size and especially some length to them. Robinson is 6-foot-4 and clocks in at over 200 pounds. Sure, he came from the D-II ranks but he played just one season of DB in his life and looked good doing it — he could be a real steal someday. Then, Hardaway is 6-3 and Dunn checks in at 6-foot. A lot of length for Brad White to play around with.

He says they’re young and will need to improve, but also loves where this group is starting out.

“So again, they’ve all been competing. They all have still a ways to go. I’m glad we’re not playing a game tomorrow. But I’m excited about this group and I’m excited about the number of years we have left with this group. Like, they’re young, they’re going to make mistakes, they’re probably going to give me a lot more gray hair, you know, over the next 12 months. But that’s okay. They’re also, I think, going to bring a lot of excitement.”