Now that she knows she will play her college softball for coach Rachel Lawson at Kentucky, McCracken County junior Ally Hutchins wants to make sure one thing does not happen to hear this year.
     “I don’t want to get caught up in going to UK. I don’t want to let my head get too big,” said Hutchins. “I just want to try and get better every game I play and not let being committed to Kentucky change that.”
     Hutchins grew up a Kentucky fan. Her dad went to school at UK and she always thought she would like to play at Kentucky.
     “I always wanted to play in the SEC, too,” Hutchins said. “When I was up there on a visit, it was like home and I knew that’s where I wanted to go for sure, so I committed. I know a lot of the teammates that I’m going to be up there with. They are some of my best friends, and I’m thankful for it all. My parents have done so much for me to be able to do this.”
     Hutchins met current UK players but her travel team teammate, Taylor Hess, who committed UK a year ago, was also there. She’s from Minnesota and Hutchins said she “just showed up” at tournaments to join the other players from Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Alabama. Lexington Tates Creek junior Peyton Plotts was also at the same game and verbally committed the same day Hutchins did.
     In 19 games as an eighth-grader in 2019, she hit .357 with one triple, two doubles, three home runs, 10 runs scored, 15 hits, and 17 RBIs with four stolen bases on five tries. She had 13 strikeouts in 27 innings pitched.

     As a sophomore Hutchins led her team with 46 runs scored and 11 home runs while also driving in 38 runs. She hit .339 with six doubles, four triples and 16 walks and also had 21 steals in 22 tries. On the mound she had 81 strikeouts in 72 innings with a 1.94 earned run average. She allowed 49 hits and 21 runs and went 8-3 with two saves.
     McCracken finished 30-7 but was eliminated in the state tournament by Butler 6-4, a loss that Hutchins won’t soon forget because McCracken had a 4-1 lead. McCracken won the state championship in 2015 after losing in the final game in 2014.
     “I really thought we had state but then a rain delay killed our momentum in the middle of the game on Saturday. We had to drive back (to Lexington) on Monday morning to finish the game and just didn’t get it done,” Hutchins said. “We have the talent to do it (win state) this year and next year. We only graduated three seniors, so I am really hopeful we can win state.”
     “For the high school season, if we do not win a state title in one of the next few years, I’m going to be sad,” Hutchins said. “Because we have the talent to do it.”
     Hutchins doesn’t plan to pitch in college despite her high school success.
     “My high school team needed pitchers, so I pitched. I will be a position player at UK. The left side of the infield (shortstop, third base) is my best position,” Hutchins said.
     At the plate, she’s a power hitter.
     “I want to drive the ball. My family calls it the caveman mentality,” she said. “If I overthink things I don’t do well. I just try to swing at good pitches and hit it hard.”
     What about her high stolen base percentage?
     “I have always been pretty quick. I have really long legs,” Hutchins, who also played soccer before realizing her true love was softball, said. “I also have good instincts.”

     Cason Wallace is handling his big-time recruitment better than Kevin Lawson, his coach at Richardson (Texas) High School.
     “It has been non-stop. I love having all these coaches visit but it is wearing me out,” Lawson said. “He has a Nov. 7 date for his decision but I think he might decide before then. My job is to be supportive and not push him. Everybody wants to know what he’s doing. Kentucky, Texas and Tennessee all want to know.
     “He is handling everything great. Nothing really bothers him or makes him rush. He has not let attention or pressure bother him.”
     Lawson said 16 coaches from eight Power-Five schools came to the high school the first day coaches were allowed to visit — something he said motivated all his players to play at a high level.
     Lawson said when UK coach John Calipari and assistant Jai Lucas came to visit, he was not surprised that assistant coaches from Texas and Tennessee also came to see the top 10 player in the 2022 recruiting class. The day before Wallace made his official visit to Tennessee, other coaches came the day before to see him.
     Wallace is a consensus five-star recruit and one of the best shooting guards and defensive playmakers in the 2022 class. The consensus is that Kentucky is the clear leader and he’ll join 2022 backcourt commits Skyy Clark and Shaedon Sharpe
     Lawson made sure the school newspaper had a chance to attend practice when some of the nation’s best coaches were at practice.
     “Those kids do a great job. This is a very unique time for our school and having big-time coaches show up is a big deal,” the coach said. “I contacted those kids and invited them to come in and take pictures because something like this may never happen again here.”

     Thanks to former UK All-American punter Max Duffy and his “Pin It Deep” podcast, receiver Wan’Dale Robinson finally confirmed why he initially committed to Kentucky and then flipped to Nebraska before signing day. He then spent two years at Nebraska before transferring to Kentucky where he has 29 catches for 467 yards and three touchdowns in five games this season, including a 41-yard dazzling touchdown catch in last week's 20-13 win over Florida.
     The former Western Hills star was down to Kentucky and Nebraska when he committed to UK even though it had seemed to me and others that he was more enamored with Scott Frost’s offense at Nebraska than he was UK’s run-oriented offense.
     “Halloween comes and me, my dad, and my trainer were on the phone with Frost. This is the day before I’m announcing. They know I’m coming and there is this big misconception on how I’m being used in their offense,” Robinson told Duffy and co-host Miles Butler, a former UK kicker.
     Robinson said he made the safe choice committing to UK.
     “I don’t know what I’m going to do. At this point, Nebraska was 1, UK was 2. If I go to UK, I can’t make the wrong choice. It’s UK. I’m the hometown kid, so

I know I’m going to go in there, and I’m going to play. So I can’t go wrong,” he said.
     “That whole week everybody was like, ‘Are you going to UK?’ and all this stuff. So I’m feeling that pressure like I need to go to UK to make everybody happy.”
     In his heart, though, he still liked the offense at Nebraska and when UK only beat Vanderbilt 14-7 late in the 2018 season and passed for just 18 yards after he made his commitment, he knew he had made the wrong choice for him when he remembered Kentucky barely being able to throw the ball.
     “I was like, ‘I can’t do this.’ As a recruit, I’m seeing it, and I’m like, if I come there, they’re still not going to throw the ball. At the end of the day, it’s who’s behind the center, who’s calling the plays,” Robinson said. “That was it for me essentially not coming in the beginning.”
     However, he came back to UK after Liam Coen was brought in as offensive coordinator and he’s been the consistent playmaker the Cats needed at receiver and is a huge reason UK is 5-0 going into Saturday night's game with LSU.
     “He is just amazing,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “He plays so hard and with so much heart.”

     Indiana Pacers President of Basketball Operations Kevin Pritchard recently compared Isaiah Jackson's athletic ability to Paul George, a former Pacer and NBA all-star. He likes the way Jackson impacted play in the summer league, including one game with seven blocks.
     "I'm not trying to compare him to Paul George right now but as a pure athlete he does some things that I've not seen in the gym in a long time," Pritchard told IndyStar writer Akeem Glaspie. "He is a fast-twitch athlete. He's at the rim all the time and I don't know if it was fair the way we looked at him.
     “I think he's got super talent, he's a good worker, and I think sky's the limit for him. We got a diamond in the rough there."
     Jackson was the 22nd pick in the 2021 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers and then traded to Indiana. Jackson averaged 8.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.6

blocked shots per game in his one season at UK and was named to the all-SEC defensive team.
     Jackson showed at UK he could defend multiple positions, one thing the Pacers also like. Kentucky coach John Calipari warned NBA teams that Jackson could be a draft steal.
     "His defensive versatility is absolutely breathtaking," Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. "I just have not seen a guy, move, block shots, change shots, be able to guard in any position the way I've seen him be able to do it."
     Jackson has always been that way. He prioritized defense over his offensive game in college and most of his one year at UK. That’s why Calipari said he will blossom in the NBA when his offense catches up with his defense.

     Former UK offensive tackle Landon Young said he had “no clue” he might play in the NFL when he was in middle school and high school. He was not even sure he would play college football, so he went to long snapping camps to help his chances of playing in college.
     “I don’t come from a sports background. Me and my Dad were like surely the only way I am going to make it on a full ride (scholarship) is to be a long snapper somewhere,” Young said. “I was going to snapping camps and I really debated giving up football.”
     The former Lafayette High School standout got a UK scholarship offer the summer before his sophomore season but didn’t totally understand what that meant.
     “It wasn’t until my junior year that I realized what all this football stuff was. I didn’t get another offer at UK until the end of my junior year. I had committed to UK after I got the offer,” Young said.
     Lafayette coach Eric Shaw and assistant coach Dennis Johnson tried to help Young with the process. Shaw played for the Bengals and Johnson was a UK standout who also played in the NFL.
     “I never got the severity of it. Even during (media) interviews when I was told, ‘You are the youngest guy ever offered (at UK)?’ and I was like, ‘Offered what? Like $2,000 dollars a year or something.’ I didn’t get it,” Young said.
     “Probably my junior year coach (Eddie) Gran was at Cincinnati still and he offered me and in the next three days I got Alabama, Ohio State and Auburn. I was like maybe this is a little bigger than I thought. It ended up working out. I started to figure out what all that meant.”
     Young initially didn’t understand a scholarship offer meant he would not have to pay to go to college.
     He “loved” both track and wrestling. He knew scholarship money was not there for wrestling or track. He also knew the odds were against anyone making it to the NFL even though Johnson repeatedly told him he had the skills to make it.
     “I thought there was no way I could make it. Then I got to college ball, played my freshman year and thought about the possibility of maybe making money one day playing football,” Young said. “It all ended up working out pretty well.”

     The New Orleans Saints took Young in the sixth round of the 2021 NFL draft He’s on the active roster and the one-time future long snapper seems to have a chance for a long career with the Saints.

  Quotes of the Week

Quote of the Week 1:

     “I loved baseball. I really think I could have got drafted as a pitcher. But in eighth grade my dad made myself and Craig (Yeast) quit baseball to do track to help us with football. He let my brother do baseball, but not me,” former UK all-SEC defensive lineman Dennis Johnson on his childhood love of baseball.

Quote of the Week 2:

     “I am definitely looking forward to having him on my team. He will provide a big presence inside and give us something we didn’t have last year. He will set hard screens and it will be fun to watch opposing guards running into screens and getting hurt when they hit him,” UK guard Davion Mintz on transfer Oscar Tshiebwe.

Quote of the Week 3:

     “A lot of Penn State fans were hurt but I had to make the decision best for me. Penn State wasn’t for me. I like to move around and do it all and not play with my hand in the ground (on the defensive line). I knew where I wanted to go after I decommitted. It took time but I knew I wanted to be at Kentucky,” Pittsburgh defensive lineman Tyreese Fearbry, a top 200 player nationally, on his commitment to UK.