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  • Jedrick Wills' development ties back to early discipline

    By: LARRY VAUGHT

    LEXINGTON — Perhaps the best thing Dennis Johnson ever did for Jedrick Wills when he was coaching him was to refuse to allow him to play in a middle school game.

    Wills is now a five-star junior offensive lineman at Lafayette and will play against Mercer County Saturday night in the PBK Bank Rebel Bowl at Boyle County.

    However, when Johnson, a former Harrodsburg and UK standout who is now the head coach at Woodford County, was Wills’ coach he held him out of a key game his eighth-grade year.

    “He was always bigger than everybody he played against,” said Johnson. “He got kicked out of four or five little league games because he was just punishing kids. He was being too aggressive, but you knew then he was going to be good.

    “His dad felt he was a little lazy at times in middle school. So when he changed schools and I got to coach him, I really pushed him. I sat him out of a huge middle school game. I made him sit and watch the whole game. After that game, he was a totally diffrent kid. He was more aggressive and he learned how to work hard in practice. Now he’s an aggressive guy, not lazy at all and is a genuine superstar.”

    The 6-5, 312-pound Wills already has scholarship offers from Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Notre Dame, Michigan State and South Carolina among others to go with ones from Kentucky and Louisville.

    He was named most valuable player at a Rivals.com camp in St. Louis in May that featured some of hte top players from the midwest and southeast. He went tot he Rivals Five-Star Challenge in Baltimore and Rivals.com ranked him as the third best lineman at the camp and best in the 2017 class. Rivals.com ranks him as the No. 13 overall recruit nationally in the 2017 class. He’s ranked the No. 119 player overall and No. 17 offensive tackle in 2017 by 247Sports.com.

    Yet Wills knows what Johnson did by not playing him helped make what he has now possible.

    “Coach Johnson is probably one of the best coaches I’ve ever had,” Wills, who was also coached at Lafayette by Johnson, said. “He kind of changed my game around and made me the player I am. He sat me out of that game and I was so mad. But it also gave me the boost I needed to step my game up every week to where I would do all that I could all the time.”

    He certainly plans to do that again Saturday against Mercer County. Lafayette is coming off a season-opening 42-31 win over Dunbar where junior quarterback Walker Wood, who has a Louisville scholarship offer, threw for 251 yards and ran for 143 more.

    “We get hyped to play every week and want to make sure we have proper preparation and get what we can out of every game,” Wills said.

    While Wills, Wood and offensive lineman Landon Young, who verbally committed to UK two years ago, are the marquee names for Lafayette, Wills rattled off a list of other players that are just as important.

    “Our entire team is a threat. We have the right pieces on offense and defense,” he said. “We have a good team, not just two or three good players. But as an offensive line, we do think we should dominate games. That’s what we want to do.”
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