The Pinkie Previews: Kentucky Tight Ends

In the next installment of the Pinkie Previews we will take a look at the tight ends at Kentucky.  Tight end is a fun position to dissect.  It is not the most important on the field but yet still has many purposes for being used.  The ‘Cats are not expected to be too deep at this position and they really have not had much at tight end since the departure of Jacob Tamme.  Tamme was a do it all tight end.  He caught passes, scored touchdowns and could block with the best of them.  He made Andre Woodson that much better of a quarterback.  Kentucky has been looking for a replacement and they have a couple of players with some potential to be that good.

The Lock: Nick Melillo

Nick Melillo will be the starting tight end when the season kicks off.  He has the most experience out of any of the tight ends on the team.  He is a junior out of Louisville.  He has solid hands but has yet to really accumulate many stats at his position.  The main goal for Melillo will be to block on the outsides and shutdown the pass rush coming off the ends.  Melillo will be asked to create space for Derrick Locke for him to either get out and go or find a gap between the tackle and himself.  If he can manage to be productive in doing that task then you would have to believe that his job would be considered complete.

The Young Guns: Anthony Kendrick and Jordan Aumiller

There is not much to say about these two.  Mostly because we are yet to see them play.  Both are redshirt freshmen who are looking to make a name for themselves.  Kendrick is 6’3″ out of Katy, Texas and Aumiller is 6’4″ out of Danville, Kentucky.  Neither of the two freshmen tight ends have much size going their way which, makes it look like they will be used as blocking tight ends as well.  Only time will tell what either of these freshmen are going to bring to the table.

Tight End Strategy: Kentucky doesn’t really have much at tight end but we don’t really know much about the players either.  Melillo was decent last season but was not really utilized in the passing game.  I don’t expect any of the tight ends to be major targets this year in the passing game either.  Kentucky tries to spread the field in their running attack on sweeps and options so the tight ends will most likely be used primarily to block for those specific play designs.  Don’t get your hopes up to high for much production out of the young and inexperienced tight ends but it would be nice to get a little bit out of them.