Kentucky’s Couch Has to Deliver

Growing up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, Tim Couch worried he’d never get a chance to show the world what he could do on the football field.

“I always thought there were so many things that was going to hold me back,” he says. “Coming from such a small place, I didn’t think anyone could find me.”

Couch has since learned that if you grow up to be 6-foot-5, with a rifle right arm and the poise that distinguishes movie heroes and true quarterbacks, “They’ll find you no matter where you’re at.”

The rest of the SEC learned Kentucky’s quarterback can play last fall, when the sophomore led the nation in completions, threw for more yards than any other quarterback, dueled Tennessee’s Peyton Manning in a memorable shootout and led the Wildcats to their first win against Alabama in 75 years.

Peyton’s place is now in the NFL, and fall 1998 is seen throughout Kentucky as Couch’s time to lead the Wildcats to a bowl game and perhaps capture the Heisman trophy that eluded Manning.

“There’s going to be a lot of pressure put on me to perform,” Couch said. “I’ve got to come out and perform and give us a chance to win.”

Couch has been the central figure in Kentucky football since 1996, when he announced he would stay in the state for college.

Growing up in Hyden, a town of 375 in the Appalachians, Couch said “there wasn’t nothing else to do but to throw a ball all day long,” other than fishing and wrestling with older brother Greg.

“There was a lot of closeness between them,” said the boys’ father, Elbert Couch, a transportation supervisor for Leslie County. “As close as two brothers can get.”

Tim followed a path set by Greg, a quarterback at Leslie County High School, then went on to Division I-AA power Eastern Kentucky.

“It wasn’t planned, but it happened just right,” Elbert Couch said. “When Greg graduated [from high school], Tim graduated from eighth grade, so he came in and started as a freshman.”

The younger brother rewrote the national high school record book, throwing for more than 12,000 yards and 133 touchdowns and winning national player of the year honors as a senior.

Home games brought Friday night crowds of more than 5,000 to Hyden. Elbert Couch remembers people parking their cars near the field three hours before games.

Though Couch considered going to Tennessee, where he would have red-shirted behind Manning, then-Kentucky coach Bill Curry won a fierce college recruiting battle by promising to modify his option attack for the young gun.

“It was kind of understood that we were going to open the offense up, kind of build it around what I could do best if I came here,” Couch said. “So when I came here, that’s what I expected.”

Couch was mainly on the bench during his freshman year and ended up attempting only 84 passes that season. Curry was fired after a 1-6 start and mishandling his star recruit.

A 5-6 record last season under new coach Hal Mumme and his pass-happy offense was only one game better than ‘96, but Couch’s emergence was the real story, as he completed 363 of 547 passes for 3,884 yards and 37 touchdowns, all but the last of those numbers SEC records.