"Heisman my ass!" Todd McShay shares how Kentucky stayed motivated at Florida

ESPN NFL Draft analyst Todd McShay is getting well-acquainted with the Kentucky football program this fall. Each week the four-letter network sends him off to cover games featuring the draft’s top prospects. This week will be his second experience on the Kentucky sideline as he keeps a keen eye on Will Levis. The first trip worked out well for the Wildcats.

Kentucky defeated Florida 26-16 in week two. Entering the top 25 matchup on the road, Kentucky received seemingly endless bulletin board material. The Cats were called soft, while the national media crowned Anthony Richardson King of College Football. Mark Stoops’ team may say they don’t pay attention to the outside noise, but Todd McShay will tell you otherwise.

“They were pissed,” McShay shared on The Ryen Russillo Podcast. “I was on the sideline during that game. I can’t say half the things, obviously, but, ‘Heisman my ass! This guy’s a Heisman? You’re talking about him as a Heisman?’

“Every player it was Heisman, Heisman, Heisman. It drove them nuts and that’s what Stoops did to motivate them because he knew what to do game-plan wise. It’s one thing as a coach to know what to do. It’s another thing to get the buy-in from your defensive players.

“‘We’re not gonna get a lot of sacks today. That’s fine, but we’re going to take this Heisman guy — everyone’s saying in our division of our conference is going to be a Heisman winner — we’re going to ruin his career. We’re going to ruin his season today. That’s our job. If you buy in to what I’m telling you, it’s going to be over by the end of the night.’ The focus was pretty remarkable and I’ve done a hundred games on the sideline. To hear every defensive player coming off the field punching each other, elbowing, ‘That’s the Heisman over there.’ It was funny, really interesting to watch.”

Kentucky certainly wrecked Richardson. The Cats picked him off twice and held him to just four yards rushing while he completed 40% of his passes.

Will Levis Lifts Too Many Weights?

It wasn’t just story time for Todd McShay on The Russillo Podcast. He broke down how all of the top NFL draft prospects at quarterback are performing so far this season. There are plenty of pros and cons to Will Levis’ game, but this is a new one: He’s too strong.

“His short accuracy suffers because of his obsession with weight training,” McShay said.

Typically players are downgraded because they don’t work hard enough. In this case, Will Levis actually works too hard. It’s bizarre, but it’s going to be something we hear in the months leading into the 2023 NFL Draft.

“Find me a quarterback in the NFL who’s a weight room legend that’s a real success,” said McShay. He was rebuffed by Jalen Hurts, but wanted to make the following point clear.

“Tebow was too pumped up and the short throws, the lay-ups, and Brady Quinn was the perfect example. When you can rear back and just drive the ball down the field, yeah, there’s accuracy there. But when it comes to touch and finesse, Levis is missing inside the strike zone too much, and taking away from yards after catch, and sometimes just missing outside of the strike zone and it’s leading to incompletions. That’s a little thing he has to work on.”

Scouts (and Peyton Manning) Love the QB’s Intangibles

“If you find a single person in the building or on campus that hasn’t been won over by Levis or isn’t heaping praise, please let me know, because that will be the first and I’ve spent months trying to dig on this guy.”

Anonymous NFL Scout to Todd McShay

We often talk about physical tools and traits when breaking down the play of NFL prospects. For Will Levis, we aren’t talking enough about the intangibles he can bring to an NFL franchise.

“The thing with Levis that I think people don’t know yet — and hopefully we’ll continue to get the message out — this guy’s work ethic, leadership, personal character, football character are exceptional,” said McShay.

That was reiterated by Peyton Manning. The Hall of Famer spent time with Levis at the Manning Passing Academy. Before Todd Blackledge calls Saturday’s game, he received a message from Manning. Levis’ intangibles stood out more than any other player at the passing academy. “He’s like a fifth or sixth-year pro,” Manning told the ESPN broadcaster.

“Whatever your grade is on tape, when you’re done studying the tape, that grade is only going to go up. That’s the baseline, but I can promise you, it’s going to continue to rise from the second the season ends until the day of the draft in late April because he’s absolutely going to murder the pre-draft process.”

Anonymous NFL Scout to Todd McShay