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Even John Hardin defensive tackle Matt Elam thought Conner quarterback Drew Barker probably would win the Paul Hornung Award given to the state's top football player.
However, it was Elam, not Baker — who has signed with Kentucky — that received the award in Louisville earlier this week.
Barker and Elam, who will announce Jan. 4 whether he'll sign with UK, Alabama or Notre Dame, are good friends and will be roommates at the Jan. 4 U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio. However, Elam did admit winning the award over a highly acclaimed quarterback was special.
"It’s very cool to beat Drew," Elam said. "I was like, ‘Drew, I’m better than you.’ I was always talk about 247’s rating, and I was like, ‘I’m No. 1 in the state.’ He always talks about Rivals. He’s like, ‘Nah, they’ve got me No. 1. (in Kentucky),'" Elam said. "We kind of make some punch lines toward each other, but it’s very neat to win.
“Winning this as a DT (defensive tackle) is kind of funny because you don’t have the kind of stats that show 3,000 passing yards (like Barker), this many touchdowns or receptions. That’s pretty cool because I feel like I had some decent stats. Eighty-six tackles, and that’s from being triple-teamed and quadruple-teamed sometimes and double-teamed every play. I try to change the game every time I step on the field, and teams have to run away from me, and still getting almost 90 tackles in a season, that’s still pretty good.”
Here are some other tidbits from Elam, who could put UK in position to have a top 15 recruiting class or better if he picks the Cats over Alabama and Notre Dame:
— Mark Stoops’ Mercedes.
Elam also got another “cool” moment during his official visit to Kentucky last weekend when he rode in UK coach Mark Stoops’ Mercedes, a vehicle that become popular after Barker posted a message on Twitter during the season about riding in the vehicle with the coach.
“Coach Stoops took me over to the (football) facility. He was like, ‘Matt, what’s up?’ I said, ‘It’s just kind of cool to be in a Mercedes riding with you.’ He was like, ‘Go tweet it (a picture) out then.’ He was like, ‘You’re my rider.’ I was like, ‘Nah, I’d rather you’d be my chauffeur.’”
— Nick Saban.
Elam said a visit from the Alabama coach to his school last week created quite a stir.
“Everybody was going crazy, and Twitter was blowing up that coach Saban was in town and at John Hardin just to visit me. That was pretty neat that he came just to visit me,” Elam said.
Elam was not surprised Saban signed a contract extension last week to end speculation that he might bolt for Texas.
Everybody told me, ‘Matt, commit to Kentucky because your boy is going to go to Texas.’ I was like, ‘No, he told me he was going to be solid to Alabama and that he’s not going to leave.’ When he signed it, (assisstant) coach (Lance) Thompson called me and said, ‘I told you, buddy. He’s going to stay here for you.’ It’s just very neat that he gave me his word, and he stuck to it,” Elam said.
— Paul Hornung.
Elam admitted he knew little about Hornung, a Kentucy native who won the Heisman Troph while playing for Notre Dame and then had a brilliant NFL career with Green Bay, before he won the award.
“I kind of had to research that a little bit. I was like, ‘Paul Hornung?’ Coach (Chad Lewis) was like, ‘You don’t know who he is?!’ I was like, ‘Not really.’ I looked him up, and I saw MVP, and he went to the NFL, and I was like, ‘Man, this dude is legit.’ I kind of heard a little bit about him when I went up to Notre Dame. They talk very highly about him,” Elam said.
He said Hornung told him a bit about what a degree from Notre Dame could do for him after his football career ends.
“He was like, ‘I know that anywhere you go, if you come from Notre Dame, they’ll hook you up.’ That was very good advice from him,” Elam said.
— Terrence “Mount” Cody.
John Hardin coach Chad Lewis said Saban compared the 370-pound Elam to the former Alabama All-American nose guard, who now plays for the Baltimore Ravens. He weighed 360 pounds while playing for Alabama.
“Saban said Matt Elam had more potential and more athletic ability than Mount Cody,” Lewis said
Alabama has four defensive tackle commits, which Elam says does not bother him. In fact, one of them — Jarran Reed — surprised him.
“Jarran Reed, I thought he was going to come to Kentucky actually. So I’m like, competition does not faze me at all. I like to be competitive, and I want to beat out the best so that I know I am the best,” Elam said. “That’s the main reason why I’m playing in this Army All-American game. A lot of people are telling me to sit out because of my knee (he dislocated his patella and missed the state semifinal loss). But I want to be out there with the best. Here in Kentucky we don’t have the best competition, so I want to play the best.”
He says he doesn’t care whether he plays in a 4-3 or 3-4 defense.
“As long as I am playing and out there, I am good with that,” Elam said.
He says Alabama and Notre Dame view him more as a nose guard while Kentucky feels he has the versatility to play more spots.
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