Jamon Dumas-Johnson holds down the No. 2 spot on CI publisher Justin Rowland's list of the top Kentucky football players going into the 2024 season.

He follows Barion Brown at five, D'Eryk Jackson at four, and Maxwell Hairston at two.

Fans can probably guess who will hold down the No. 1 spot and there probably won't be much controversy. But you could go a number of directions in the number two spot.

Dumas-Johnson seems like a very safe choice because he probably won't slide much. He has been a Butkus finalist as a starting inside linebacker for a national championship team at Georgia and slides right into the middle of a Kentucky defense where he will be playing alongside an extremely experienced player in Jackson. In other words, Dumas-Johnson is set up to succeed.

Players like Maxwell Hairston and Barion Brown have the breakout talent to take over this spot over the course of the 2024 season, but Dumas-Johnson should be a steady and reliable anchor at a very important spot.

When we spoke with people around the program during Kentucky's summer camp season it was Dumas-Johnson's intangibles that were cited more than anything else. "He doesn't take s--- from anybody," one person said. So he's been a leader and a tone-setter who demonstrates by example and work ethic since he's arrived at Kentucky, and that's exactly what the Cats expected to get when they prioritized him as he was in the portal.

During the 2022 season several media outlets named Dumas-Johnson a first team All-American. He was a preseason All-SEC first teamer in 2023 as well as a preseason first team All-American according to the Associated Press.

Georgia doesn't get an overwhelming number of sacks but Dumas-Johnson was one of their best at bringing down the quarterback with 7.5 over the past two seasons. He led UGA in tackles for loss in 2022 (9) and has 14.5 over the past two seasons.

In only nine games played in 2023, and action missed due to injury, Dumas-Johnson was seventh on the team in tackles and fourth in tackles per game. Up-and-comer CJ Allen did step in to provide high-level play in Dumas-Johnson's absence but this is a massive addition for Kentucky.

Bringing in a player of Dumas-Johnson's caliber says something about how Kentucky viewed its roster. The coaching staff must have deemed a key addition there after Trevin Wallace's departure to be significant. There's still Daveren Rayner as a backup but you can expect Dumas-Johnson to play an enormous amount of football, stuff the stat sheet, set the tone, and contribute to the culture. That all counts for a lot.