Steven 'Sack Em' Soles Lives Up To His Nickname for Potent Kentucky Pass Rush

Steven Soles is an undersized linebacker. Sack Em Soles is a wild animal that is a threat to every quarterback in the SEC.

The Tennessee native plays with unparalleled tenacity, bending his way around offensive tackles to create chaos in the backfield. He showed flashes of that as a true freshman. During his sophomore debut, he nearly flipped the game on its head.

“Steven is a guy that plays with high energy. He’s very relentless, he plays hard and, he’s a bit undersized, but he plays extremely hard and brings us a lot of juice and energy. It’s good to see that, and good to see him get the pressure,” said Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops.

That pressure resulted in a pair of strip sacks in the season-opener against Toledo. Unfortunately, the ball never bounced the Wildcats’ way. Even still, it’s clear Kentucky has a game-changer on the edge of the defense.

“Steven is a Tasmanian Devil, in terms of his twitch, his power. He goes. That’s the big thing we have to do is put him in positions that we can harness that where he can just go play fast and not overthink things. That’s our job as a coaching staff right now,” said defensive coordinator Brad White.

“Obviously, he made huge plays on both those sacks. Would love to have jumped on them. Those are opportunities that we need to make.”

Soles Isn’t The Only Game-Wrecker in the Pass Rush

The two plays from Soles were memorable, but it wasn’t the only time someone from the Kentucky front-line was raising hell in the Toledo backfield. Those plays just don’t pop quite as much in the box score as the two made by Mr. Sack ‘Em.

On the second snap of the game, USC transfer Sam Greene bull-rushed the Toledo offensive tackle into Tucker Gleason. It forced the quarterback to make an errant throw that resulted in an interception. On a later third down, Greene was once again in the backfield. He didn’t get Gleason to the ground, but he got in a shot that forced an incompletion and a stop.

“Those won’t go down as a sack, but just as good, turning into stops,” said White. “I thought we did a nice job with the pocket. We knew what kind of quarterback Gleason was going to be; he was able to buy some time and throw down the field a little bit. But overall, I think we did a decent job of affecting him, forcing him to not throw super clean balls.”

Gleason was able to escape a few times. He just made it past the line of scrimmage when Kam Olds tripped him up from behind. Tavion Gadson made a tackle for loss on fourth down to end a Toledo drive.

Kentucky has a Tasmanian Devil on the Edge, but Soles doesn’t have to do it alone. The strength of the team is the team, and that’s exactly the case when it comes to the Kentucky pass rush.