Ashley felt good about his visit to UK and committed
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Once Ty Ashley felt at home on a college football visit to the University of Kentucky, it didn’t take him long to make a decision.
Ashley went to Missouri, Cincinnati, Western Kentucky University to watch their spring drills last week. The standout linebacker at Owensboro High School went to Lexington last Thursday to visit UK.
“I had Notre Dame and Indiana planned after that, but when I went up there (UK) I couldn’t hold back, I said let’s do this now,” Ty Ashley said Saturday. “I saw how they coached up their linebackers, I went to some meetings, just the history with Coach (Jay) Bateman, he came from Texas A&M. It was just all lining up for me, it all felt like home.”
Kentucky has a new football coaching staff with head coach Will Stein being hired in early December to replace Mark Stoops. Stein quickly put together a coaching staff and the energy level has been strong in Lexington. Bateman is the UK defensive coordinator and has experience as a linebacker coach.
“The energy was something I hadn’t seen before,” Ashley said. “The pace of practice, the way they get things done, the positivity literally everybody had up there.”
Ashley started picking up offers as a sophomore at Owensboro High School. He got 10 offers quickly, with Notre Dame leading the way, during this junior recruiting cycle.
Ashley had received scholarship offers from Eastern Kentucky, Louisville, Cincinnati, Kent State, Murray State, Penn State, and Western Kentucky, the alma mater of his father, Buster Ashley, an all-state lineman at OHS and a consensus First-Team All-American at WKU.
“Dad helped me out big time,” Ty said. “He went through same process. He was like ‘this is your decision.’ He wanted me to pick the place that was going to make me the happiest.”
This was all after a junior season for the 6-foot-3, 212-pound linebacker in which he had three fumble recoveries during his junior season, including one for a touchdown.
Ashley finished Owensboro’s 13-2 Class 5-A state championship season with 148 total tackles, including 10 tackles for loss for OHS first-year head coach DaMarcus Ganaway. He will be a senior for OHS next season.
And his decision was to commit to UK.
“Coach Bateman did an unbelievable job of making me feel welcome,” Ty Ashley said. “Coach Will met us at hotel. We met for an hour and talked, about life. I’m looking for guys can make me a better football player, and a better person as well.”
Right now, Ashley is getting ready for baseball season. He is a centerfielder and first baseman for Owensboro baseball.
“I was close with the group on baseball last year,” Ashley said. “Eli Hampton played linebacker beside me. I wanted to finish it out with them. I will enroll early next year (at UK).”
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