The University of Louisville was an interesting and common destination last week for a pair of top Northern Kentucky prospects.
Start with Beechwood’s sophomore multi-sport star,
Tyler Fryman
, who has already accepted a baseball offer from a UofL Cardinal program that has been competing at the College World Series this week in Omaha. But it was football that got the speedy Fryman down I-71 this week as the Cards’ football coaches invited the wide receiver/defensive back/Wildcat down for head coach Jeff Brohm’s “Let’s Play Football” Camp.
Which is apparently what the 6-foot, 175-pound Fryman did, first by running a 4.51 time in the 40-yard dash and then “using his burst to evade defenders and easily among the top wide receivers at the camp” according to the Cardinal Authority to catch a number of passes from U of L commit Briggs Cherry that earned Fryman a second scholarship offer from the U of L football coaches.
Offensive coordinator
Brian Brohm
“came to our school one day and I talked to him and he said ‘Come to a camp’,” Fryman said. “I was like, all right, I’ll do that because I’m verbally committed here for baseball and I was like, I like football too.”
After an early season injury, Fryman played six games for the state champion Tigers last fall, playing both ways, with 17 catches for 299 yards and four TD, with 70 yards rushing and another TD along with 26 tackles on defense. Fryman also has early football offers from Miami of Ohio and Toledo.
As for baseball, Fryman has been on the UofL radar since “when I was in probably eighth grade,” he told the Cardinal Authority. “I went to a camp and I liked how they coached the little stuff. I saw some of the players and they were working hard. They were getting along. And I felt like it’s just like it was right and it’s a cool place. I liked how they coach. They coach hard.”
For a Ninth Region finalist Beechwood team, Fryman led the Tigers with a .436 batting average while recording 34 steals in 36 attempts with his 51 hits tied for fourth-most in the state and his 19 doubles tied for second.
As to his future, Fryman said: “I’m young. I try to play everything. I love both sports. I’ve been playing them since I was young and I just play for fun. I love baseball and football.”
One Kentucky stop for world-traveler Kinney
It wasn’t easy for Newport alum — and five-star prospect —
Taylen Kinney
to fit in his visit last week to Louisville, one of the top spots among the more than 30 major programs that have offered the 6-foot-1 guard, who ranks as high as No. 14 nationally in the 2026 class, a scholarship.
Here’s a recent itinerary: After signing an NIL deal with Adidas, one of just 12 in the nation, and traveling with his OTE team to Dubai for an event, Kinney played in the Adidas EuroCamp in Treviso, Italy, before then participating in the NBA Players Association Top 100 Camp at the Rock Hill Sports and Events Center in South Carolina. And then it’s on to Colorado Springs and a tryout for the USA Basketball Under-19 Camp this week.
But first, the visit to Louisville where head coach Pat Kelsey and staff “just told me that I was their guy,” Kinney told Cardinal Authority. “I fit perfectly into their system, and there’s no other school that I fit better into than them. I probably talk to Coach Kelsey twice a week. He talks to my parents multiple times a week. I talk to the whole staff all of the time.”
Kinney says his Adidas deal won’t play a factor in his college choice. “That deal is for high school,” Kinney said. “So, I can go wherever I want.”
Kinney’s only other official visit has been to Purdue and he will be going to Texas, Arkansas, Oregon, and Kentucky. At last month’s Adidas 3SSB event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Kinney scored 29, 25, 26 and 21 points as a legitimate “scoring lead guard and true three-point range threat,” according to 247 Sports. “He was super creative with his handle, throwing together crisp combo moves to create space for his pull-up. Kinney excels in the mid-range area but is also able to make plays going to the rim and be a shooting threat out to the arc (although his long-range shooting could still be more consistent).”
After averaging 17.5 points a game and four rebounds as a sophomore at Newport, Kinney averaged 20.1 points, 5.0 assists, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.3 steals a game for Overtime Elite while hitting 55.6 percent from the field (including 33.3 percent from three-point range). In four Top 100 Camp games last week, he averaged 22 points, 6.3 assists, and 5.1 rebounds a game, good for third in scoring and second in assists at the camp.
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