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Koback, who was recovering from a broken leg suffered during his senior season at Springfield High School, has been held out of practices and workouts. Now that he has been cleared for work, he can get started on competing for a spot in the backfield behind returning All-SEC running back Benny Snell.
Koback comes to UK from Holland, Ohio, one of the many recruits drawn to Lexington by Coach Stoops from the Buckeye State. He is a three-star recruit (ranked by 247Sports) and was ranked as the number 37 running back in the 2017 class.
Koback was building an impressive senior season that was cut short by the aforementioned broken leg. In the preceding game, Koback rushed for 375 yards and six touchdowns and had compiled 1,096 yards on 93 touches with 21 total touchdowns (19 rushing and 2 receiving) in just four games. Koback chose UK over West Virginia, Georgia, and Northwestern.
With two-thirds of Kentucky’s three headed backfield gone (Boom Williams left for the draft and Jojo Kemp graduated), there is an open season on who will play behind Benny Snell in this year’s backfield. Snell is clearly the number one option after a record-setting freshman year, but who will back him up? The Cats have Sihiem King coming back but the other options are as yet untested. Gran is hoping Koback can step up and provide some needed production behind Snell.
We will see how Koback fits in and how the backfield competition shakes out over the coming months. Until then, sit tight and remember that college football is only five weeks away.