[LeeCoUKFan]

Tates Creek's Taylor draws Kentucky interest

Justin Rowland
Special to CatsIllustrated.com

R.J. Taylor is one of the most talented junior recruits in the state of Kentucky and the new UK staff is well aware of his ability on both sides of the ball.

Mark Stoops and his staff haven't decided whether they prefer the Tates Creek athlete as a wide receiver or a defensive back but based on what they've told Taylor and his father, Ross, he will be high on the board for the foreseeable future.

[Image: http://vmedia.rivals.com/IMAGES/PROSPECT...00X267.JPG]

Taylor and his father made the trip to Kentucky this weekend and they couldn't seem to say enough good things about the presentation and the personalities they encountered.

"It went great. I loved it," Taylor said. "Everything was smooth. The campus was nice and I enjoyed the basketball game, the facilities and the coaches. I had been before but I had never really seen what goes on behind the scenes.

"I love [the staff's] approach. I really like the way they're approaching things. They're investing $110 million into the stadium and the facilities."

Taylor spoke with Neal Brown and Derrick Ansley at length throughout the activities on Saturday. He was able to hang out with recruits like Drew Barker, Nacarius Fant, De'Eric Culver and Elijah Bell among others.

The 6-foot, 160-pound corner may return to UK in two weeks when the Cats take on Missouri on the hardwood.

According to Taylor's father the staff had a couple of big selling points.

"When you came in the coaches greeted you there and introduced you to everybody," the elder Taylor said. "We went into a theater-type of room and they did an overview. Coach Stoops introduced the entire staff. Most of it was selling the conference and what they did at Florida State. They tied that in with the academics at UK."

One aspect of the presentation in particular impressed the Taylor family, and apparently everyone else.

"They have a high performance coach (Erik Korem) that does sports science that nobody is doing," Taylor's father said. "It's like they're the only school that's doing it. It's charting a person's performance level throughout the day so they know exactly what to train on and what not to train on. They've got people with the 49ers and the Bills that are calling this guy and the school.

"He went over to Australia and said they're doing that with rugby, that kind of performance monitoring. They can plug intoa cell phone and a dash board will chart what their bodies need. It carries over to practice, like when a receiver's running a route. It shows what a receiver does. He runs 2.3 miles in game time but 70-percent of that is done walking. They're doing specific things to put him at peak performance for practice and the game.

"It was mind-blowing stuff. We sat right behind Drew Barker and his father and other folks and they were all impressed."

The duo had some great interaction with Brown, and D.J. Eliot made them feel right at home as well.

"Coach Eliot sat down specifically with us and Mike Edwards and we had a great conversation," Taylor's father said. "It was a real intimate conversation for 30-45 minutes, just us as a group. It was a phenomenal conversation.

"They're a young, energetic staff but they're also proven guys."

http://kentucky.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1471373