Kelvin Joseph - Photo by Jacob Noger - UK Football
LSU transfer Kelvin Joseph is the first player I can ever remember being named to a preseason all-Southeastern Conference team before he ever played a down for the Wildcats. Yet the talented defensive back got that honor and no one at UK thinks it was wrong.
He was a four-star prospect in Louisiana and played in 11 games as a true freshman before transferring and redshirting last year at Kentucky.
Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White likes what he’s seen again from Joseph in the limited preseason practices so far just like he did during his redshirt season.
“Kelvin is, again, he’s getting comfortable with everything that’s within our system. You can see the talent and his smoothness,” White said Thursday after practice.
“He’s primarily in the boundary but he’s a guy that you can play out to the field if you want to at that corner spot. What’s nice is that we’ve got great competition across the board.”
That’s right. As good as Jospeh is, he might not start because of the depth of talent in UK’s secondary that was among the best in the SEC last year.
White said Brandin Echols is having a solid camp and also praised Cedrick Dort and Jamari Brown as some coming “into his own” daily. White also singled out redshirt freshman MJ Devonshire for his play.
“The nice thing is we’ve got a lot of guys that are going to push and it forces Kelvin to stay locked into his playbook. He’s really working hard at that,” White said. “Again, it’s not a small playbook and there’s a lot of nuances in it.”
Then came the quote of the day from White explaining that he knows Joseph will make mistakes as he learns.
“Sometimes you got to touch the stove to realize it’s hot, but he does a lot of natural things that you can’t teach,” White said.
Hopefully that’s true about Joseph but we know for sure White says a lot of things you just can’t each either after the hot stove mention.
