How Kentucky May Use Its Talented Young Pass Rushers

Kentucky heavily invested in the front seven during the previous recruiting cycle. If you include JUCO transfer Dennious Jackson, ten of the 26 new players are defensive linemen or linebackers. Most of them are LB/EDGE players, including three of the top-five ranked players in the 2024 recruiting class.

In the era of NIL and the transfer portal, there’s no time to waste. The best of the best need to see the field right away. Even though Kentucky has a deep, experienced defense up front, every time you ask a member of the defense about the front seven, three freshmen are mentioned: Brian Robinson, Jacob Smith, and Jerod Smith.

When I asked Deone Walker about the talent on the defensive line at SEC Media Days, he went through the list of players, then paused when he got to B-Rob. “He’s a big guy.” That’s coming from Deone, the largest human to ever live, by some estimations.

It’s challenging to play as a true freshman in the SEC, especially in the trenches. However, these former four-star recruits have the size and the pedigree to make an impact. One former Wildcat showed us a blueprint of how that might work out.

Kentucky can use the Josh Paschal Playbook

Robinson and the Smith Twins are all Top 300 prospects. When Josh Paschal arrived in Lexington ahead of the 2017 season, the DMV product was a four-star, Top 25 EDGE. The Cats couldn’t keep him off the field.

Similar to this season, there was a problem. Kentucky already had a bunch of really talented defensive linemen and outside linebackers. Josh Hines-Allen was a year away from becoming the College Football Defensive Player of the Year, Denzil Ware was entering his final season with just shy of 20 TFLs to his name, while Boogie Watson was on the verge of emerging as a pass-rushing specialist.

There were a ton of cooks in the kitchen, but Kentucky found room for Paschal in obvious passing situations. In what they called the “Magic package,” the true freshman took the field on third downs. In his first game, he delivered a hit at the line of scrimmage you could feel in the Commonwealth all the way from Hattiesburg. RB Ito Smith, who spent four years in the NFL, was tackled just outside of his own end zone after Paschal executed a twist to perfection.

Paschal’s immediate success ensured this experiment would remain for the rest of the season. He played in every single game and averaged 21.75 snaps per regular season contest. Of those snaps, 57% were pass rush attempts. He logged 25 pressures and three sacks before starting and playing every single snap in the Music City Bowl against Northwestern.

What This Year’s Pass Rush Package May Look Like

Anwar Stewart and Brad White will keep their alignments and defensive line rotations close to the vest. Instead of trying to pry it from them, let’s estimate what it may look like.

The reason why the Pachal Plan makes sense is because of the makeup of the starting rotation. The strength of the upperclassmen is their strength and size. The new guys are bringing more juice and twitch to the equation.

If subs allow for it, every third down will include Deone Walker and Tyreese Fearbry on the EDGE. The other two spots can be used for a combination of the three underclassmen. Brian Robinson is big enough to be used as a fast-twitch nose, while Jerod Smith can slide down from a 5-technique (DE) to a 3-tech (DT). That’s a lot of explosiveness from a front four.

Kentucky only had 27 sacks (2.25 per game) last season before wracking up nine in the Gator Bowl against the porous Clemson offensive line. The lack of consistency in the pass rush played a role in Kentucky’s struggles to defend the pass (240.5 ypg., 11th in SEC) and get off the field on third down (43.24%, 12th in SEC). Regularly using these exceptional underclassmen could make a huge difference for the Wildcats in 2024.

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