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It wasn’t that linebacker Trevin Wallace had 12 tackles against Ball State Saturday that led to him being named Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Week. Instead, it was the type of tackles he made. He had the initial hit/tackle on a play that turned into a Ball State fumble being returned 69 yards for a touchdown by safety Jalen Geiger.
He had seven tackles for loss, no gain or only one yard. He had two tackles for loss and was in on a quarterback sack.
Wallace, who now has 98 career tackles, was challenged by DeAndre Square, UK’s inspirational leader at linebacker the previous three seasons, to get on the captain’s list this year. Kentucky coach Mark Stoops understands the importance of having his best players also becoming team leaders.
“I’ve always wanted to be authentic because I always wanted to be a player-led team, but I also just don’t want it to be a popularity contest. I mentioned beforehand, and I don’t want to get too much in the weeds on it, but I voted for captains more in depth than I have before of just checking a box,” Stoops said.
“Much like we do our evaluations, and our players do self-evaluations and peer evaluations, and they have to answer some detailed questions and give some answers on people and let them think about different things instead of talent or popularity or anything else. We did that this year and I got a lot more feedback. But what was interesting is it was right in line with who our captains were.”
I still remember the first time former UK linebackers coach Jon Sumrall, now the head coach at Troy, told me about Wallace and how excited he was about signing Wallace. He was a Georgia prep star and incredible athlete who has waited for his chance to be UK’s defensive leader/stopper.
Stoops thinks he has a terrific middle linebacker duo with Wallace and D’Eryk Jackson.
“D-Jack is very anchored and in control of the middle when calls and adjustments and the comfort zone with those two playing (with) each other. Trevin will wow you with the athleticism and played a really good game (against Ball State),” Stoops said.
“When (defensive coordinator) Brad (White) brought him (on blitzes) several times, you feel his impact on pressures. He’s a big dude that’s got some pop to him. He’s impactful, when we pressure, he can obviously run like heck.”
Just how fast is Wallace?
“I want to say he ran, on our GPS don’t quote me exactly, I want to say it was the second-fastest time in the whole game. It was like 21-something miles an hour. That’s moving for a dude that’s 240 pounds,” Stoops said. “He can run.”
“There were a couple things he drifted, just eye violation a little bit, but played a really good game. Played extremely hard and was sideline to sideline and I think D-Jack did some good things as well.”
Wallace will get another chance to shine Saturday when UK hosts Eastern Kentucky University.
