Devonshire to play for Kentucky
Wildcats’ ascent selling point for Aliquippa DB
For Aliquippa football player M.J. Devonshire, signing day felt like a real-life stage of a video game — only without a reset button.
“I compare it all the time to the video game, ‘NCAA Football,’” Devonshire said. “You make a hard decision on there, and you’ll be like, ‘I can make a new player.’ But here, I couldn’t make a new player.”
Devonshire, a four-star cornerback prospect according to Rivals, announced his decision to enroll at the University of Kentucky next season at a news conference inside his high school. After passing on picking a school during the early signing period in December, he signed his letter of intent Wednesday morning to make it official.
The 5-foot-11, 180-pound playmaker was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s 2018 coplayer of the year after helping lead Aliquippa to the third PIAA championship in its storied history. He caught 27 passes for 571 yards and scored 24 total touchdowns four different ways in the 2018 season, including nine touchdowns of 50 yards or more.
Devonshire added eight interceptions on defense, picking off three passes in the Quips’ 42-19 win against Derry to help secure their record 17th WPIAL championship. He chose the Wildcats over his other finalists, Pitt and West Virginia, stating that Kentucky is where he felt most comfortable on his visits.
“Coach [Mark] Stoops came to my house last Tuesday, and from there I was sold and ready to go,” Devonshire said. “We got it rolling, and I told them I would announce it next week, but I also told them I wanted to talk to Pitt and see what they had to say. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was. Once I talked to Pitt and decided over the weekend, I was sure this is what I wanted to do. I didn’t secondguess it.”
The announcement didn’t come as much of a surprise now, even though Kentucky was nowhere on Devonshire’s radar a month ago. The Wildcats made a late push to recruit Devonshire when he came out of the early signing period undecided, and Stoops and his staff clearly made a strong impression on him.
“I asked myself the same question, like, who would have thought I would be going to Kentucky? If you said that to me in January, I would have looked at you like you were crazy,” Devonshire said. “They came back to the school when I didn’t sign in December … I was going to go to Ole Miss the week after, but once I went to Kentucky, there wasn’t a need for another visit. I knew that’s where I wanted to be.”
Although Kentucky has one of the most prestigious basketball programs in the nation, the football team has long played second fiddle. That started to change this year. The Wildcats finished last season with a 27-24 win against Penn State in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Day, giving them a 10-3 overall record and a No. 12 ranking in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll.
No stranger to winning championships at Aliquippa, Devonshire said the rapidly changing culture around Kentucky’s football program played a major role in his decision.
“It’s exciting because they’re turning the program around,” Devonshire said. “Last year they had their 10win season, beating Penn State in the Citrus Bowl and making a New Year’s Six bowl, making a bowl game like that is a big thing. Playing in those bowl games is the next step to playing in the national championship.”
By playing at the FBS level in a Power Five conference, Devonshire is now following in the footsteps of two legendary cornerbacks who helped the Quips win their first two state championships.
Ty Law led Aliquippa to the 1991 PIAA championship, then played at Michigan before eventually winning Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. Law was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame last weekend. Darrelle Revis powered Aliquippa to the 2003 PIAA championship, then starred at Pitt before making a name for himself as “Revis Island” in the NFL. Revis also won a Super Bowl with the Patriots before calling it a career in 2018.
Time will tell if Devonshire can live up to all Law and Revis accomplished, but he’s thankful for the path the local legends carved out.
“Everybody knows the way [Law] started opened the way for Darrelle to play for the Patriots, because they knew how Ty was,” Devonshire said. “And it’s going to open the way, hopefully, for me to play for any of the teams they played for and continue the tradition of Aliquippa having great corners and D-backs.”