Keidron Smith, Kentucky Football News: Draft Scout Player News

08/17/22 - CB Keidron Smith, rSr/2023, Kentucky

It started in high school with memorizing wide receivers' routes. Maybe just one for any given game. Talent could take Keidron Smith a pretty long way in those days - to three-star cornerback status and a scholarship to Ole Miss - and so he didn't need much more than that. In time, he came to crave it. Fast forward to this fall, and Smith is finishing his college football career at Kentucky. He's a fifth-year senior and a certified film-room fiend. The film study he used to do in passing has become a passion. "(Film study) slows the game down so much more," Smith said. "It makes the game so much slower, and that allows you to play so much faster." It's a lesson Smith absorbed at Ole Miss and, as importantly, one the Kentucky coaches hope he can start to impart the Cats' younger corners.

Though he hopes to set an example for Kentucky's corners, Smith is foremost here to play. He came to UK not merely to follow friend and former roommate Jacquez Jones, the Wildcats linebacker who came from Oxford before last season and became a fixture on the UK defense, but because he saw "the opportunity here." After moving from corner to safety last season at Ole Miss, Smith - who also played at nickel back for the Rebels - is back in his original position at Kentucky. A stout 6-foot-2 and 204 pounds, he has the size Mark Stoops favors at the position and saw UK as an ideal schematic fit. "It's basically free agency," Smith said of the transfer portal. "I took my time, and I think - well, I don't think, I know - that I made the right decision." - Courier Journal

rSr/2023