Jeremiah Caldwell (Allen Trieu/247Sports Photo)
He’s never made a visit to Kentucky. Recently he’s been contacted by coaches at Oregon, Oklahoma and other schools. None of that mattered to Belleville (Mich.) four-star junior athlete Jeremiah Caldwell as he made his verbal commitment to Kentucky, the first school that offered him a scholarship before his sophomore season in 2019. He’s the first commit in the 2022 class.
“I felt like Kentucky was the only school really believing in me and I just wanted to make it happen,” Caldwell said about his decision to commit now. “They have been on me quite a while. I was in class and didn’t even know what was going on when they offered back in 2019.”
Caldwell said it was a combination of coach Mark Stoops and defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale easily sold him on UK.
“Coach Clink is going to keep it real. He ain’t going to sugar coat anything to you,” Caldwell said.
The 6-3, 180-pound Caldwell chose Kentucky over Iowa State, Toledo and Central Michigan but he figured to have a lot more offers coming. He played both cornerback and receiver for Belleville, which recently lost in the state semifinals — he had a touchdown catch — after high school football had been paused for about two months because of COVID-19. He played both cornerback and receiver — one reason he’s ranked so high nationally as an athlete.
Kentucky recruited him for defense.
“They want me to play safety, corner, nickleback,” Caldwell said. “I feel like I could play DB or receiver in college. I just like playing. My (high school) coach said if you are the best player, you ought to be on the field both ways and I like that. Most coaches said I have got a good football IQ and that I am like a quarterback on defense.”
Caldwell says he has played “football my whole life” but was going to run track last season before the pandemic shut that down.
“COVID has been really hard. We had to wait forever to finish our season,” Caldwell said.
He knows committing now could put some extra pressure on him next season.
“On the field now you will have a target on your back that you are a Kentucky commit going to the SEC,” he said. “However, you just have to deal with that. A lot of guys do and I know I can.”
It’s a long time until signing day and with the recent interest he’s received from other schools he’s not sure yet if he will continue to talk to other schools or not.
“I just don’t know yet but I really like Kentucky and that’s why I committed,” he said.
