In UK football’s spring game, Beau Allen didn’t get a lot of help
Quick hitters from the “great Kroger Field thaw out”:
21. Dropped passes. I ran a computer search for the word “drop” on my game notes from Saturday’s wintry Kentucky Wildcats football Blue-White Game. Every dropped pass by a UK wideout that I recorded during the scrimmage came at the expense of the same quarterback.
20. Beau Allen. Suffice to say, the ex-Lexington Catholic star didn’t get a lot of help from his friends during Kentucky’s first spring game since 2019.
19. Drop one. The first pass Allen threw Saturday came on a short out into the right flat. The ball was dropped by promising redshirt freshman tight end Jordan Dingle — who appeared to try to turn up field and run before he had fully secured the pass.
18. Drop two. The second pass Allen threw Saturday was a well-thrown ball on an intermediate out pattern — that was dropped by the hard-nosed Wildcats slot receiver Rahsaan Lewis.
17. Drop three. Allen’s sixth throw should have gone for a 3-yard touchdown pass. It came as he rolled right to avoid pressure and found a wide-open Chris Lewis running parallel with him toward the right corner of the end zone. Rather than score, Lewis, a high-ceiling, redshirt-freshman wide receiver, bobbled the ball twice — and then watched it fall to the turf.
16. Misleading numbers. The “dropsies” with which he was victimized are why Allen’s Blue-White Game passing stat line — 4-of-11 for 75 yards — did not tell the full story of the quarterback’s performance.
15. Drawing a bead on Benny. Kentucky star running back Christopher Rodriguez (2,739 career rushing yards since 2018) will enter the 2022 regular season needing 1,135 yards to pass Benny Snell (3,873 yards from 2016 through 2018) as UK’s top all-time ground gainer. “C-Rod,” a McDonough, Ga., product, ran for 1,379 yards last season.
14. Drawing a bead on “the Bear.” Don’t forget, Mark Stoops (59-53 since 2013) needs only two victories in 2022 to pass Paul Bryant (60-23-5 from 1946 through 1953) as Kentucky’s all-time leader in coaching victories.
13. Kyra Elzy’s new contract. Contrary to the message-board hullabaloo it generated, a one-year contract extension for the first Kentucky women’s basketball coach to win an SEC Tournament championship since 1982 seems eminently reasonable from here.
12. Saniah Tyler. The UK Hoops point guard signee has been chosen the St. Louis Post-Dispatch All-Metro Girls Basketball Player of the Year. Tyler leaves Missouri’s Incarnate Word Academy with the school riding a 68-game girls’ basketball win streak.
11. Amiya Jenkins. The UK Hoops signee hit four three-pointers and had a team-high 20 points in Kentucky’s 99-84 loss to Ohio in the Battle of the Border high-school all-star game Saturday. It was a nice bounce-back performance after the Anderson County star — Kentucky’s 2022 Miss Basketball — struggled against eventual state champion Sacred Heart Academy in the Girls’ Sweet Sixteen opening round.
10. Rhyne Howard. The Kentucky women’s basketball star was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft, taken by the Atlanta Dream Monday night. She is the first ex-Cat ever taken first overall in a WNBA Draft.
9. UK first rounders. All-time, Kentucky has now had four players taken in the first round of the WNBA Draft.
8. Victoria Dunlap. In 2011, the UK forward star was chosen No. 11 in the first round by the Washington Mystics.
7. A’dia Mathies. In 2013, the UK star guard — Kentucky’s 2009 Miss Basketball — was chosen No. 10 in the first round by the Los Angeles Sparks.
6. Evelyn Akhator. The Dallas Wings made the UK post player the No. 3 overall pick in the first round of the 2017 WNBA Draft.
5. A void in the UK Hoops legacy. What Kentucky has yet to produce is a player who went on to enjoy a lasting WNBA career.
4. Victoria Dunlap in the pros. The ex-UK star played only 31 games in the WNBA and had career averages of 2.3 points and 1.7 rebounds a game.
3. A’dia Mathies in the pros. The ex-Cats star played only 30 games in the WNBA and had career averages of 2.3 points and 0.8 assists a game.
2. Evelyn Akhator in the pros. Still active professionally overseas, the one-time Kentucky standout has played only 15 games in the WNBA to date and has career averages of 0.9 points and 0.6 rebounds.
1. Rhyne Howard in the pros. If she stays healthy, I am confident that the three-time AP First Team All-American will at last give Kentucky recruiters something they have never previously had to sell:
A viable WNBA standout who played her college hoops in UK blue and white.
This story was originally published April 11, 2022 at 1:01 PM.
