At one point during a recent Kentucky Wildcats football practice, the sight of exiled UK running back Christopher Rodriguez in the huddle with the Cats’ second-string offense moved his teammates to levity.
“We joked, ‘We’ve got the best ‘two-huddle’ running back in the country right now,’” Kentucky quarterback Will Levis said.
Starting this week, UK figures to be lighter at “two-huddle running back” — but better at running the football in games.
At the end of a four-game suspension that occurred after an eligibility investigation conducted by UK, Rodriguez will make his 2022 season debut Saturday (Oct. 1) when No. 8 Kentucky (4-0, 1-0 SEC) visits No. 16 Mississippi (4-0, 0-0 SEC) for a crucial Southeastern Conference showdown.
In the season’s fifth game, Kentucky will be adding one of the SEC’s best running backs.
“He’s a difference-maker,” new UK offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello said of Rodriguez. “We’re excited to get him back. I think that will be a shot for everyone.”
On Saturday night, its run game limited to 103 yards, Kentucky used a big-play passing attack to stave off a determined upset bid by Mid-American Conference preseason favorite Northern Illinois (1-3, 0-0 MAC). A Kroger Field crowd of 61,579 watched the Wildcats escape with a 31-23 victory over NIU.
Against a blitz-happy Northern Illinois defense, Levis completed 18 of 26 passes for 303 yards. The QB’s four touchdown throws were evenly divided between freshman speedster Barion Brown (15 and 70 yards) and Virginia Tech transfer Tayvion Robinson (69 and 40 yards).
“You’ve got to be who you are,” Kentucky Coach Mark Stoops said afterward. “And, right now, we have a very talented quarterback. You know, we have some explosive wide receivers. So we’re creating some big plays.”
Without one offensive linemen starting in the same position he played a year ago, what Kentucky has not been able to do consistently so far in 2022 is run the football.
The question moving ahead is how much the return of Rodriguez, who ran for 1,378 yards last season, goes toward reinvigorating UK’s pedestrian ground attack?
“He’s special,” Scangarello said. “Once ‘C-Rod’ pops back in there, we’ll get some confidence. I like where we will be headed.”
Rodriguez’s absence so far this season was apparently related to a University of Kentucky investigation launched in February into members of the Wildcats football team for allegedly filing inaccurate timecards for jobs worked at the university hospital.
According to UK documents obtained by the Herald-Leader’s Jon Hale via the state open-records law, that investigation determined that multiple members of the football team listed hours worked for when they were not present at the hospital or when video surveillance showed them leaving the facility or there was a conflict with class or game schedules.
Players were declared ineligible. Citing student-privacy laws, UK officials have declined to say why Rodriguez was suspended, although Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart has confirmed there was an investigation into the running back’s college eligibility.
Over the summer, Rodriguez served as the workout partner to UK linebacker DeAndre Square. Rodriguez never lost focus, Square said, even as the uncertainty about his playing status lingered.
“A lot of unfortunate things happened (to Rodriguez) but he stayed the course,” Square said. “He was at every practice. He never moped. He never frowned. He just worked hard.”
The four games Rodriguez missed might end up costing him the University of Kentucky’s all-time rushing lead.
When Rodriguez returns at Ole Miss, he will need 1,134 yards to break Benny Snell’s UK career rushing record of 3,873 yards. If C-Rod plays in all 8 remaining regular-season games and Kentucky reaches a bowl, he will need to average 126 yards to pass Snell.
Last season, Rodriguez averaged 106.1 yards rushing per game.
So producing 126 yards a contest over a nine-game stretch will be tough. That seems especially true because the 2022 Kentucky offensive line has not so far shown the ability to consistently produce holes for backs as “The Big Blue Wall” did with regularity in recent seasons.
To be determined is how much the physical running style of the 5-foot-11, 224-pound Rodriguez can “fix” the UK rushing attack.
“He’s got great vision,” Levis said of “C-Rod.” “He sees holes before they happen. He makes those plays where you are like, ‘How did he turn that 1-yard run into a 10-yard run?’ There’s not many guys who can do that.”
Mississippi Coach Lane Kiffin has seen firsthand the impact Rodriguez can have on an opposing defense. In a 42-41 Ole Miss overtime win at Kentucky in 2020, Rodriguez ran for 133 yards and two touchdowns on the Rebels and averaged a robust 7.8 yards a carry.
That’s a far cry from the 2.4 yards a carry that Kentucky is averaging as a team so far in 2022.
Rodriguez is “special,” Scangarello said. “He is, arguably, as good as any back in the SEC. Bring him on.”
