It has been mentioned several times that UK will debut their brand new head coach when Joker Phillips takes on UL Saturday. Several new players will also make their debut when the Cats take the field. Two players in particular, Jerrell Priester and Raymond Sanders, are ready to take down the Cards. Larry Vaught updates UK's freshmen duo in this article for the Advocate Messenger.
Sanders and Priester know that they will not be the most experienced players out there. Yet what they lack in experience, they make up in confidence. “You just have to have the mindset and talent to come in here and not be scared. You can’t be scared at all no matter what. I want to work hard, get better and whatever happens, happens,” said Priester, who was also a state track sprint champion in South Carolina.
Priester has set some high goals for his career at UK. He doesn’t want to be your run of the mill football player. He wants to be exceptional. “I don’t just want to be a good football player. I don’t just want to be an average football player. I want to be great, and you can’t be great without having confidence. Confidence is the key to success. You have to have confidence to be successful,” he said.
Jerrell’s belief in his self has caught the eye of the coaching staff. It was the confidence that drew Joker to Priester. “He believes in his ability and knows he can make plays,” Phillips said. “He’s not afraid to compete and he’s really talented.”
Priester is not a lone in being able to compete. Raymond Sanders spent last season rushing for over 1600 yards and scored 25 touchdowns. He was ranked in the top 15 all purpose backs last seasons. “I think I can help the team. I want to take it slow and learn from the older guys, learn the system and learn how the coaches work. I want to fit in and excel from there, but I do think I can help the team in different ways,” Sanders, who also played basketball and ran track for Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, Ga., said.
One way in which Sanders wants to help the team is to be a kick off returner. He even had a nice message for a senior leader about their spot. Sanders is confident enough that he told senior Derrick Locke he wanted to take his spot away as UK’s primary kickoff returner, even though Locke is considered one of the nation’s best. “I didn’t say I was going to take it. I said I was going to relieve him of his duties,” Sanders smiled and said. “We are good. He told me he came in the same way with the same confidence. I have to have that confidence to get on the field. He told me to just keep it up. He has been teaching me a lot.”
Both Priester and Sanders will be able to get some playing time this season. Sanders will be the number 3 running back and Priester will be the number 2 cornerback. They will also back up on special teams to Cobb and Locke who think that both freshmen will be better players at UK over their career. “It is an honor to have great players like that making comments like that about us. You can’t make too much out of it. You still have to work hard and do things to get to their level, but it is great to hear Locke and Cobb say things like that about us,” Priester said.
Coach Phillips likes his young running back’s ability to run the ball and to lead the team. “Both of them have got really natural ability. Sanders, he reminds me a lot of Derrick Locke when he walked on campus, his leadership ability. He was the leader of Stephenson High School's football team. He's continued that here,” Phillips said. “The first week he was there, Derrick Locke came up and said, I've never been around a smarter guy than this guy. He understands our checks, he understands our signals, he understands the tracks that the running backs have to make on each run, he understands the pass protection.
Joker stated that Priester is very aggressive and runs well. He is not a very big corner, but his vertical leap helps him with that. Also Priester doesn’t want to be limited to the defensive side of the ball. Jerrell ran for 1300 yards last season, but Joker wants him on defense for now. “We want him to learn as much as he possibly can about the defensive side of the ball before we decide to give him some offensive side. He will be a backup returner in the kick return area. Then he or Mychal Bailey will be the backup punt returner,” Phillips said.
Neither player expect to be nervous on Louisville. Priester says that they are both ready to go. “I am not nervous. Football is what I do,” Priester said. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. I am at a Division I school, but then football is what I have done all my life and am going to do. Raymond is the same way. We are football players and football players like big games.”
