Kentucky Linebacker Kash Daniel Denies Twisting Florida QB's Ankle, Says His Hand Was Stuck

During the fourth quarter of Florida’s comeback win over Kentucky last weekend, Florida QB Kyle Trask came up short on a two-point conversion attempt. As he got up from the pile, he looked behind him and stepped up to Kentucky linebacker Kash Daniel. Though it wasn’t initially clear what sparked the disagreement, it appeared that Daniel tried to tweak Trask’s right ankle.

Daniel, one of Kentucky’s team captains, was asked Wednesday about the play, and he proclaimed his innocence, saying he merely had his hand trapped under a lineman and was trying to pull it out of the pile. The man with a movie-villain name didn’t deny talking trash, but he did deny intentionally trying to injure his opponents.

Here’s the full transcript:

Do I talk a lot of crap? Absolutely. Do I bump a dude here and there to get underneath 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’ve kept my mouth shut about it I’ve been biting my tongue as long as I can because that’s actually something that I actually hold close to me. I’m a victim of a dirty play, and if you don’t believe me I’ve got a plate and seven screws in my right ankle to prove that. I’ve got a scar running halfway down my leg.

So I’m not out there to hurt anybody. My hand that I had surgery on — this one got stepped on as it was going down — this surgically repaired hand has two screws in it and if enough weight’s on it, still hurts like a you know what.

My hand’s caught underneath here, instantly gets stepped on. I’m trying to move s—- around, I pull my hand out of there last second because I just pulled it out, there was—I got it stuck underneath a lineman’s leg with all that weight on it. Then I pulled it free from that, kept moving stuff, kept hitting legs and stuff and finally it came through. Maybe he felt something weird, I don’t know, but I’m not out there to twist nobody’s ankle or hurt nobody. End of story.

However, a new sideline angle of the pileup unearthed yesterday by Kentucky CBS station WYMT showed Daniel pretty clearly grabbing onto Trask’s ankle and torquing it.

Florida head coach Dan Mullen was asked about the play this week, and he didn’t seem too concerned with ensuring Daniel was disciplined. Mullen told Paul Finebaum that he’d let the SEC office deal with the case; Trask also spoke about it and seemed ready to move on.

As for any internal discipline, Daniel isn’t slated to miss any game time tomorrow against Mississippi State.

H/t to Ben