Kentucky believes Kavosiey Smoke has earned right to be RB1

Kavosiey Smoke is entering year five at Kentucky as a redshirt senior in 2022. The tailback has played a lot of football. The former three-star recruit in the class of 2018 out of Wetumpka (Ala.) High has played in 34 career games with 1,306 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns on a 5.6 yards per rush average.

The veteran has been a productive player for a long time in Lexington but was seen as RB5 in the spring game and hadn’t created much buzz in fall camp. That changed over the last week. The 209-pound tailback is scheduled to get the second start of his career on Saturday after Kentucky’s first depth chart revealed that Smoke is RB1 with Chris Rodriguez Jr. unavailable this week.

That was a surprise to many, but not to the coaching staff.

“We expect him to be who he is,” Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops told reporters on Monday. “He has this opportunity right now. And we’re excited. I’m excited for him and to see what what he does with it. I have a good feeling what he’ll do, because through the years I’ve seen his preparation. I liked the way he’s responded this camp. I think the coaches put pressure on him because we expect a lot out of him. And we want to see that consistency. And I’m proud of the way he’s responded the past couple of weeks because he didn’t start out there. He didn’t start out in that starting number one spot. Whether Chris was there or not.”

Until last week, we had not heard much about Kavosiey Smoke. The veteran had not flashed at open practice settings as a consensus was building that FCS transfer Ramon Jefferson was emerging in that tailback competition. However, the senior appears to have kicked it up a notch to close out camp and will now get a chance to shine when Kentucky unveils Rich Scangarello’s wide zone running scheme against Miami (Ohio) at Kroger Field.

The new offensive coordinator spoke highly of the tailback last week as he has responded to adversity.

“Like a lot of people, I think competition brings out the best in you,” Scangarello said. “I think that in that room you have C-Rod and then these group of guys who are battling for reps. Only one tailback plays like one quarterback. There’s only one ball to handoff. When you got a workhorse like C-Rod, you’re not going to take him off the field unless you have to. That forces guys to work and play their best and buy-in and do little things that maybe weren’t expected of them. And I think that’s always the goal with any player, and I’ve been proud of him with the fact that he’s embraced that.”

Last season, Kavosiey Smoke rushed for 416 yards and four touchdowns on 5.1 yards per rush. The tailback’s rushing success rate (44.4%) was third on the team behind Will Levis (65.9%) and Rodriguez (55.1%). But efficiency shouldn’t be the strength for Smoke. In the past, the rusher has shown some big-play pop with seven rushes of 20-plus yards in 2019 on 101 attempts. The tailback has produced just three rushes of 20-plus yard in the last two years on 128 total attempts. Kentucky will need that explosiveness to come again if Smoke is to hold down the starting spot.

Without Rodriguez, there will be a 100 percent committee approach with Smoke, Jefferson, and JuTahn McClain receiving snaps early in the season. Starting the game doesn’t necessarily mean ending with the most attempts. Expect a healthy rotation with Kavosiey Smoke getting the first at-bat of the season.

“After the game, you may see a different rep count,” said Stoops about the RB1 position. “So we’ll just see where it goes.”