Young talks about ranking, season and future
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It's been a bittersweet week for Landon Young. Although he and his Lafayette teammates lost to Male in the state championship game Young saw his ranking on Rivals.com rise 37 spots.
Young is now ranked the No. 54 overall prospect on the Rivals100, which means his Rivals Rating is a 6.0. That's best in Kentucky's recruiting class and Young didn't even try to hide his satisfaction and excitement when Cats Illustrated caught up with him.
"I'm ecstatic," Young said following the release of the rankings. "Me and my dad were just reflecting on it and how everything has worked out over the years."
Young went from a long, lanky defensive lineman as a youngster in high school to a powerful, muscular yet lean offensive tackle ranked the No. 4 player at his position nationally. At one point he didn't even really want to play offensive tackle. It turns out the decision to try it out was a pretty good one.
As for the loss to Male the sting from that will lessen in time. But for now it's still fresh.
"It's tough," Young said. "I've wanted to win that game for 18 years. All I can say is I don't have any regrets because I left everything I had out there and played as hard as I could have played. I just wish we could have played a little bit better as a team.
"But looking back on my high school career, from right around the time when Coach Shaw came in when I was a freshman, we've come so far. We went from 3-8 to 12-3 and one game from the state championship. We accomplished so much," he said.
Kentucky wasn't 3-8 this year but the Wildcats also didn't reach bowl eligibility, which was the goal for most expectation-setters before the season. So Young and his fellow Class of 2016 recruits will be doing their best to help get the program to that important benchmark.
Young was at Kentucky games all season long so he was familiar with the team, it's successes and struggles, and has a unique perspective.
"One of the things that I think they need to get fixed is some of the attitudes on the team," a candid Young said. "You know, I look at guys like George Asafo-Adjei and C.J. Conrad. They're the kinds of guys that just buckle their chin strap and they're ready to go. When something bad happens they just put their head down and go to work. Some of the other guys on the team need to do that. When we get in there we're going to have to bring the kind of attitude and work ethic that the team needs to get to where it needs to go."
And Young believes the 2016 class has plenty of the right personalities for that job.
"Absolutely," he said. "I think about some of the guys I know best, like Tate (Leavitt), Drake (Jackson) and Kash (Daniel), and we're all the kinds of guys that are going to go to work and do whatever it takes to get us where we need to be. They want it just as bad for this program as I do. It means just as much to them."
Although Young's meteoric rise up the rankings has been impressive -- from unranked to high three star, to low four-star and finally one of the top-rated four-stars in the nation -- his younger teammate Jedrick Wills still commands some of the spotlight at Lafayette, too. The five-star 2017 lineman will be hearing a lot from Young.
"I'll be talking to him all the time. I know he likes Kentucky," Young said. "But he's one of those guys that doesn't really talk a whole lot about when he's going to make a decision or where he's going to end up. I do know he likes Kentucky but I think he's going to go through the whole process. He's not going to want too many people saying that they know he's going here or telling him what to do. He wants to do it his own way and I support him 100-percent in that."
But Wills already knows where Young stands.
Young also has a strong bond with another 2017 recruit at his school -- quarterback Walker Wood.
Wood will still have Wills protecting him on the line next season but he'll be minus one Rivals100 lineman. Still, he'll have Young pulling for him and waiting anxiously for him to join him in blue and white in Lexington.
"Anytime Walker's got a question he feels welcome coming to me and asking and I'll help him anytime," Young said.
The next milestone for Young will be National Signing Day. He won't be an early enrollee but he said the Kentucky coaches don't have anything to worry about with regard to his commitment.
"I'm 100-percent solid," Young said.
His in-home visit with the coaches is on Wednesday and Young has already had John Schlarman by his school recently.
