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West Virginia DB: UK's facilities "like nothing I've seen before"

The UK football program does not often target prospects from bordering West Virginia, but occasionally a target emerges that catches the coaching staff's attention.

Morgantown, W.V., athlete Amir Richardson is one such player.

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The three-star prospect has offers from in-state schools WVU and Marshall, as well as Cincinnati and Army. He's one of the players UK assistant coach Dean Hood is recruiting and Richardson visited Lexington over the weekend.

That was Richardson's first trip to Kentucky. The visit followed brief social media communication with Hood, who shared some information about the Kentucky football program and then invited him to visit.

Richardson's initial invitation was to attend Kentucky's first junior day but he couldn't make that trip on short notice. But the February 24th event worked for him.

"I had a lot of fun going to Kentucky," Richardson said. "It was somewhere new, other than the schools I had been talking to prior to that. Basically I wanted to go because it's SEC and a new opportunity with the basketball game.

"What stood out to me the most was the facilities. I watched a video online but it's not the same as actually being there. Their facilities are absolutely top notch, like nothing I've seen before," Richardson said. "I've seen a few campuses but Kentucky's definitely top notch. You can tell it's elite, top notch SEC ball. You can tell the players take a lot of pride in their facilities. Coach (Mark) Stoops and everybody else took a lot of pride in it. And the energy at the basketball game surprised me. You can tell that's a championship-type culture. They were hanging on every call that was made. The fans are crazy, even between timeouts. It was very shocking to see."

There were scores of prospects visiting but Hood made a special point to spend plenty of time around Richardson. They sat next to one another on the bus going over to the basketball game.

"It wasn't even talk about football. It was personal stuff, about life," Richardson said. "He's a real cool guy. I got to connect with him. He went to West Virginia to get his masters so he could relate to me on different things about Morgantown, like restaurants and things like that."

Hood told Richardson that he likes he has the ability to play running back or wide receiver, "But he thinks at the next level (he's) a safety."

Kentucky did not offer Richardson but the coaching staff told him they would like to see him visit the campus again. They spoke with him about spring practices and camps.

"I told them after the visit I had I would definitely like to come back," he said.

How difficult would it be to beat out the Mountaineers if the Wildcats do offer?

"My connections with them are pretty similar to Kentucky but I know them a little more because coach (Dana) Holgorson's son goes to my school. But we're still on a coach-player type basis and it's not like I grew up with any of them, so it's still a recruiting kind of relationship," he said.

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