The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
C.J. Conrad of Keystone aiming to help Kentucky
The Keystone graduate leads a group who have helped the Wildcats through the ups and downs.
Most college football pundits are not expecting much from Kentucky in 2018.
Sporting News college football editor Zac Al-Khateeb has the Wildcats finishing sixth in the SEC East ahead of only Vanderbilt.
Athlon Sports predicts Kentucky will finish fifth in the East with a 3-5 conference record and overall record of 6-6, with SECcountry.com concurring with the No. 5 ranking.
ESPN pegged the Wildcats as the No. 9 team in its SEC Power Rankings.
And Kentucky senior tight tend C.J. Conrad could not care less.
After all, those making the predictions are the ones who have not been watching the work the Wildcats have put in during the offseason.
The Keystone High School graduate leads an impressive group of Kentucky seniors who have helped the Wildcats through the ups and downs of recent seasons, all the while working to remold the culture of Kentucky football into one that expects greatness.
“I think it’s about a winning culture,” Conrad said at Kentucky’s SEC Media Day on July 16. “We’ve had games in the past we’ve won that we probably shouldn’t have won. We’ve had some games in the past that we’ve lost and probably should have won. Everyone’s looking for that perfect ingredient to do it. But I think ultimately right now what we’re doing in the summer is all we can do. It’s working extremely hard, finding leaders on this team that can step up in big moments, and we have to make the plays in order to do that.
“It’s just the small things that Coach (Mark) Stoops preaches all the time, just little things that add up in big moments. They may not be the headline of the game for why we lost, but there’s a lot of things that go into every single game. We have to take care of those things and give ourselves a chance.”
And, as he did at Keystone while leading the Wildcats to their first-ever playoff appearance, the 6-foot-5, 252-pound Conrad is not backing down from the challenge of leading Kentucky to the next level.
“Myself, personally, I’m just really trying to take a leadership role on this team right now,” Conrad said. “I’ve played all three years now. I’ve seen it from the beginning to now, just trying to build that winning culture. I’ve seen how close we’ve been in
the past to winning more football games this year for us.”
In his three years at Kentucky, the Wildcats have posted a 19-19 record. However, Kentucky has gone 7-6 each of the past two seasons, securing a spot in the TaxSlayer Bowl in 2016 and the Music City Bowl in 2017 — the first bowl appearances by Kentucky since 2011 and first back-to-back bowl seasons since 2008-09.
And as the Wildcats improve as a team, so does Conrad’s stock as an NFL prospect.
In May, Conrad topped Mel Kiper’s 2019 NFL draft position rankings as the top tight end prospect for the 2019 draft.
“For me, it motivates me,” said Conrad regarding being ranked on Kiper’s list in a recent story on the University of Kentucky website. “That’s how I’ve always been. Success or accolades or whatever you want to call it has always motivated me to push harder because I want to prove those people right. I also had that in my mind. It’s just they’re now seeing it. This has always been my thought process. This is always who I thought I was as a player. Now people are just seeing it. So nothing has changed for me.”
However, in typical Conrad fashion, the tight end has brushed aside most talk of his individual success to focus on what the 2018 Kentucky Wildcats can achieve.
“It definitely inspires you,” Conrad said of the Wildcats’ returning talent. “It makes you excited about this coming season. I know that I saw something special. To be honest, if I didn’t see something special I probably wouldn’t have come back. I think that’s the same with (senior safety) Mike (Edwards) and (senior linebacker) Josh (Allen). We saw something special and we thought we could build on that.”