Before they were Kentucky Wildcats, transfers had awkward moments with new teammates
For Kentucky football, the November loss to Vanderbilt was rock bottom in a season that failed to live up to preseason expectations.
For new Wildcats running back Ray Davis, that afternoon was far more enjoyable.
“It was a big day for the Vanderbilt program,” Davis said. “Obviously with the struggles they had in recent years, it was just a big game to have. It was a big game to be a part of. To know I was able to contribute to a historic day.”
Davis, then a senior for the Commodores, rushed for 129 yards and one touchdown in Vanderbilt’s 24-21 victory. The win snapped Vanderbilt’s 26-game Southeastern Conference losing streak.
Two months later, Davis was working out alongside many of the Kentucky players whose hopes of reaching a marquee bowl he helped dash in his only previous appearance at Kroger Field. The Vanderbilt loss has not come up often in conversations with his new teammates, but when it does, Davis has a playful response.
“I say if anybody wants to talk crap during practice, I’m going to bring up the game they played us, against Vandy, and just talk about 129 yards,” Davis said with a laugh. “Nah, it’s been fun. We laugh and we talk. Some of the guys, they talk about the game, but I don’t really talk much about it.
“I’m a Kentucky Wildcat. I’m not a Vanderbilt Commodore. That’s in the past.”
Playful banter aside, the awkward dynamic between former rivals turned teammates is an element becoming increasingly more common in college football locker rooms in the era of free transfers.
And even before Davis joined the Wildcats, Kentucky was no exception.
Before he was Kentucky’s star quarterback, Will Levis was a Penn State freshman in 2018 rooting hard against the Wildcats in the Citrus Bowl. New Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary had a similar experience while rehabbing from a season-ending injury in 2020 when his North Carolina State teammates faced UK in the Gator Bowl.
By the time his former Iowa teammates faced Kentucky in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, 2022, quarterback Deuce Hogan had already entered the transfer portal and decided to continue his career as a walk-on for the Wildcats.
“Since I was at home, I definitely remember being vividly very torn,” Hogan said. “It was my best friends playing against my future teammates.”
While Levis, Leary and Hogan did not actually appear in the game when their former teams played Kentucky, wide receiver Tayvion Robinson did suit up against the Wildcats as a freshman for Virginia Tech in the 2019 Belk Bowl. Robinson was on the opposite side of the pregame fight centered around UK star Lynn Bowden and on the losing end of the game that saw Bowden lead Kentucky to victory after he was not ejected for throwing a punch in the warm-up fracas.
Two years later, Robinson still remembered the tension at the team events the week before the bowl that contributed to the emotions that bubbled over in warm-ups.
But the memory that stood out even more was a hit he took on a fourth-down reception.
“Yusuf Corker comes downhill,” Robinson said. “It took all the way to the end of the season to get my welcome-to-college hit. That’s something I’ll always remember.”
Ole Miss transfers Keidron Smith and Jacquez Jones also played against Kentucky before joining Mark Stoops’ program.
And the experience was painful for both sides.
In a 2020 game that saw Kentucky lose in overtime when kicker Matt Ruffolo missed a point-after attempt, Smith sent future teammate Kavosiey Smoke to the locker room on what UK Coach Mark Stoops felt was an illegal horse-collar tackle that was not flagged by officials.
Smoke broke a rib on the play that forced him to miss the next three games. By the time Smith transferred to Kentucky two years later, the incident was only a hazy memory.
“I did not know that,” Smith said last fall when asked about his controversial tackle. “That hasn’t come up. I’m not going to bring it up.”
Jones was also injured in that game in an experience that would resurface last fall when he and Smith prepared to return to Oxford for their first game against their former teammates since transferring to Kentucky.
UK running back Chris Rodriguez was returning from a four-game suspension that week, and Jones was asked to describe the experience Ole Miss defenders would be facing with Rodriguez and his bone-crushing rushing style back on the field for Kentucky.
“I tackled him and ended up with a concussion,” Jones said. “That was probably my first concussion I ever had because I ran into his knee. I laid down on the sideline and didn’t know where I was at. I didn’t know C-Rod was that powerful, so it kind of caught me off guard.
“... He probably doesn’t even know that story. I try to keep that to myself, but I kind of just snitched on myself.”
The hits delivered by Smith and Rodriguez may not have come up in conversation, but the overtime sequence that saw Ruffolo miss the extra point that allowed Ole Miss to win the game with a touchdown and extra point on the next drive did.
“Ever since I got here, (Ruffolo) says Coach Kiffin owes him a present for missing a field goal,” Jones said. “I can’t do nothing but thank Ruffolo for that game.”
If new Kentucky left tackle Marques Cox is healthy for the 2023 season opener against Ball State, it will mark his first game since suffering a season-ending foot injury last September.
His return will happen on the same field where his injury did.
Cox, then an offensive lineman for Northern Illinois, was attempting to block Jones on a play in Kentucky’s Sept. 24 victory when his foot was caught in a pile of players. He ended up tearing a ligament between his big toe and middle toe.
While Cox would not play again last season, he had already done enough to catch the attention of Kentucky coaches when they were preparing for the head-to-head matchup. When Cox entered the transfer portal in December, Kentucky was quick to reach out as it worked to rebuild its offensive line.
“It’s definitely surreal, definitely an ironic moment, but at the same time every blessing comes in disguise,” Cox said of his return to Kroger Field. “Maybe that was the blessing that got me here.”
Like Jones, Smith and Hogan last year when Kentucky played Iowa and Ole Miss, two of the Wildcats’ new incoming transfers will have the chance to play against their former teams this season.
Offensive lineman Tanner Bowles could face Alabama on Nov. 11. Davis could face Vanderbilt on Sept. 23.
“When week four comes around, we’ll still be friends but within the white lines we won’t be,” Davis said.
If Davis has his way, his role in handing Kentucky its most embarrassing 2022 loss will be forgotten by then because he has already cemented himself as the next in a line of productive Wildcats running backs led by Benny Snell and Chris Rodriguez.
Do that, and the transfer portal era challenge of turning from rival to teammate will be complete.
“It’s just life,” Davis said. “That’s what it is. It’s the way of college football. It’s one of those you’ve got to adapt and learn pretty fast. I feel like I’ve been on this team for the past two or three years just because these guys have embraced me. They’ve welcomed me in. It’s like a family.
“When I got here, the first couple of days I did feel alone because I didn’t know anybody, but that didn’t last for that long. Guys were coming up to me. … It’s different when you’re on the other side and you’re going against those guys you don’t know nothing about. But once you’re with them, you learn a little about them, you start to embrace them as a teammate, as family.”