[LeeCoUKFan]

McWilson happy to be focused on UK, not recruitment

Justin Rowland
Special to CatsIllustrated.com

Marcus McWilson signed his letter of intent with Kentucky two months ago. He's happy to have turned the page from that stage in his life.

It's not that the recruiting process was an altogether bad experience for the four-star safety. It was just hectic. Then there was the pressure. Lots of it.

McWilson was one of Nebraska's early commits and was presumed to be Lincoln-bound. That was until Kentucky came after him closer to Signing Day. He wanted to keep everything close to the vest and understandably so. When he was ready he finally announced his decision to decommit from Nebraska. He committed to the Wildcats shortly after that.

That decision made the Kentucky coaching staff very happy, giving them their first major win with a high school prospect. The Nebraska coaches and fans? Not so much.

"It's definitely been good to move on," McWilson said this week. "All the phone calls got ridiculous. It's good to get some breathing room. I'm pretty glad to have it behind me."

McWilson has plenty of breathing room now. He and some friends from Youngstown (Ohio) Cardinal Mooney are using their spring break this week as an opportunity to spend some time down in sunny Florida.

After that he turns his attention to track, where he will compete in several events: The 100, 200, 4 x 100 and 4 x 200.

He stays in good contact with the Kentucky coaches but there's not the sense of urgency there was before.

"I'm still keeping in touch with them every time I can but I'm keeping busy with school," he said. "It's not as much as it was before. I talk to coach (Derrick) Ansley, coach (Bradley Dale) Peveto, coach (Mark) Stoops and coach (Vince) Marrow.

"I should be going down for the spring game. I'll be back (in Ohio) on Sunday from spring break so I should be able to head down for that."

The coaches haven't talked about the depth chart too much but McWilson has done his own research.

"They've got a freshman and a sophomore that didn't play too much. There's a junior that will be a senior and he was showing me some stuff when I was down there. I know I'm going to be competing when I get down there," he said.

McWilson is a unique recruit for Kentucky. Stoops and Marrow obviously have strong ties to the Youngstown area, and while that's a region the Wildcats haven't had success in over the years there's the hope that McWilson could propel Kentucky to future success, especially at Cardinal Mooney.

There's a chance he could be reunited with a former teammate: Braylon Heard.

"When I was a freshman he was a senior," McWilson said. "He ran track with my brother so I know him and I talked to him when he came back to Mooney recently. He talked to some of the coaches and the other guys. I don't want to try to influence his decision in any way or put any pressure on him because I didn't want any pressure myself."

And now he's glad to have all that pressure behind him.

http://kentucky.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1492763