Kash Daniel: “Do I talk a lot of crap? Absolutely. And do I bump a dude here and there to get under his skin and talk while I’m doing it? Absolutely, that’s part of my game and what I do. But am I out there to deliberately hurt somebody? Absolutely not… I’m a victim of a dirty play, I’ve got seven screws and a plate in my right ankle to prove that. My hand, that I had surgery on, got stepped on and I was trying to move sh*t around, and I was pulling my hand out at the last second because it was stuck under a lineman’s leg… Maybe he felt something weird, but I’m not out here to twist nobody’s ankle.” (Video at Bottom of Page)
Kentucky Wildcats senior linebacker Kash Daniel is taking a lot of heat in the news this week after video surfaced on some questionable curriculars at the bottom of a pile in Kentucky’s 29-21 home loss to the ninth ranked Florida Gators last week.
In the video, Daniel is seen violently twisting the ankle of Florida quarterback Kyle Trask after the Gators backup quarterback was stopped on a failed two-point conversion in the fourth quarter. Trask got up and instantly got in Daniel’s face to exchange words.
ESPN was featuring the play on its state of the art ‘SkyCam’ view, and got a clear glimpse of the questionable sequence of events.
Daniel claims that he had his surgically repaired hand caught under a lineman’s leg and was trying to ‘rip’ his arm out of the pile to avoid injury.
As on Thursday, there is no word from SEC offices on a possible suspension, but Florida coach Dan Mullen publicly acknowledged the play saying “I’m sure they’ve looked at it, and that’s something that they would address.”
The optics of the play look even worse considering Florida starting quarterback Feleipe Franks had already dislocated his ankle earlier in the game and will be lost for the season. In the play, however, Franks had his leg rolled up under him on a tackle, and foul play was not involved.