J.J. Weaver weight gain could lead to breakout season

Kentucky redshirt senior J.J. Weaver is back for year five in Lexington. The Louisville (Ky.) Moore product is looking to have a breakout season before moving on to the NFL Draft. Added mass is hopefully going to make a difference for the outside linebacker.

Weaver enters the 2023 season with 16 starts in 35 career games at Kentucky. The EDGE player has accumulated 120 tackles, 23.5 tackles for loss, 9.5 sacks, 47 pressures, three forced fumbles, and two interceptions in 1,297 defensive snaps. Unfortunately, the three-year starter for Kentucky and preseason third-team All-SEC selection has yet to get through a full season without some type of injury holding him back.

In 2020, Weaver tore his ACL as a redshirt freshman. That injury caused him to play at less than 100 percent in 2021. After a strong start in 2022, Weaver missed two games with an elbow injury that lingered throughout the season.

To help prevent some of those injuries, Weaver hit the weights and training table. The veteran is reportedly up over 250 pounds. That added mass should help him on the field this season.

“Whenever you add good weight and you can continue to stay strong and fast and explosive, that added girth allows you to hold point better in the run game,” Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White told KSR. “Gives you a little more push when you go speed-to-power in the pass rush. So there’s a lot of obvious added benefits to that.”

“The comparisons to when Josh [Allen] made that jump between his junior and senior year you could see he was just able to play stouter. It also, in a lot of cases, it allows you to play with less injury.”

Kentucky is banking on that less injury part. White believes that Weaver has been “unlucky” with his injury history in college. The added mass should help a player that has never played 500 defensive snaps in a single season stay on the field. That could make a big difference for this Kentucky defense.

“It’ll allow him to play more snaps,” White said.