The password in Kentucky is …

Sporting News, The, Sept 2, 1996 by Steve Harrison

One weekend this summer, Chris Redman and Tim Couch had a fishing date at Lake Barkley, down at the Tennessee border. It would have been a good chance to do a little bonding. Fishing for striped bass. Listening to the clickets. Staring at the stars. And wondering what cosmic fluke caused them - two quarterbacks once known as the best players in high school football - to be born, raised and now attend college in the state of Kentucky.

But before this casual reunion of quarterbacking messiahs was to take place, Redman's girlfriend called. She said she and her family were going on vacation in Florida, and they would just love for Chris to come. You can guess what happened next - and what happened to the weekend at the lake.

This Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, Redman, the Parade Player of the Year in 1994, and Couch, Parade's Player of the Year in '95, will meet - not as true rivals, but as curious facsimiles of one another.

This is not Troy Aikman vs. Steve Young. Not yet, anyway. Couch, a true freshman, will be the second-stringer for Kentucky, the basketball school whose football team is in the '90s. Redman, a redshirt freshman, will be the second-stringer for Louisville, the basketball school that plays football in a baseball stadium.

Chances are, Redman and Couch will play just a series or two. Jason Payne, a scrambling senior, should start for Louisville, and a gutsy junior named Billy Jack Haskins, who played in three games last season with a separated shoulder, should get the nod for Kentucky. But loyalists from the Blue-grass State are drooling nonetheless. After all, Kentucky's last megastar, Paul Hornung, left for Notre Dame in

"To have both these players back-to-back has opened up some eyes," Louisville coach Ron Cooper says. "We are looking forward to them playing one day."

Elbert Couch, Tim's father and director of transportation for the Leslie County school system, gushes at a meeting of the state's No. 1's. "A million times I've thought about it," he says. Me and my friend, we're fiding around in my truck and we're amazed that a boy from Hyden, Ky., population broke all those passing records."

At Leslie County High, Couch became the nation's best high school quarterback - statistically - of all time. As Couch set national records for pass completions (872), passing yardage (12,104) and touchdowns (133), the state - not to mention the country - streamed down the Daniel Boone Parkway, searching for Hyden, a coal and timber town in the Cumberland Mountains. The only other time Hyden saw such a crowd was for Richard Nixon's 1978 visit, in which he made his first public speech after he resigned as president. He came to dedicate the gym, the Richard M. Nixon Recreation Center.

"Every now and then I think it's a big accomplishment," Tim says. "Out of all those big cities, like L.A. or anywhere in California, and first of all just to be mentioned with them is such an honor ... but to be No. 1 ..."

Four hours west in Louisville is Male High, a big-city school with big-tirne football. For Chris Redman, who starred at Male for three years, football is family. Bob Redman, his father, was his head coach; growing up, Chris used to bend a coat hanger into a play headset to be like Dad. In high school, while Chris assaulted state and national passing records with an offense his dad calls "wide-ass open," Bob Redman was busy giving defensive players helmet stickers of cockroaches for special hits. If you spray Raid on a cockroach," Bob Redman says, "they fall on their backs and their legs kick up. And when you hit somebody really good..."

Redman, while not blessed with great size - he is now 6-2, 210 pound - not only won a state championship, his junior year, he holds the national record for touchdown passes in a season, with 57, and the record for most TD passes in a half, with eight. And for one November afternoon he held the state record for passing yards, for, oh, about three hours. In a playoff doubleheader at Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, Male defeated Holy Cross, as Redman, then a senior, threw for 251 yards, which pushed his total yards past the old mark of 7,192 held by Couch, then a junior. A few hours later, on the same field, Couch piloted Leslie County to a 45-28 victory, throwing for 350 yards.

"I had an analogy," says Bobby Burton, analyst for the National Recruiting Advisor. "Redman is more of a Ty Detmer player, and Couch is a Drew Bledsoe gunner. Redman doesn't throw the deep ball as well, but he's really accurate."

Redman and Couch are, in fact, similar blueeyed souls. Tim likes everything from country to rap; Chris likes country and alternative, which, in these parts, means the Smashing Pumpkins They both say the right things, and more important, do the right things. Redman throws a Hail Mary for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Couch speaks to the elementary school kids about the evils of drugs. Tim is a country boy," Bob Redman says. Chris is more of a city-country boy."

Since the quarterback left, the Couch Potatoes, as Hyden residents called themselves last year, seem to be in a funk. At the Dairy Queen where Couch often ate lunch, his autographed photo hangs on the wall. The sporting goods store, which doubles as the place to buy a refrigerator, sells T-shirts with no words, just a picture of Couch clutching a football, ready to throw. Elbert and Janice Couch, the proud parents, have preserved Tim's bedroom. His Aikman poster hangs over his bed like a championship banner A file cabinet is full of recruiting letters, sorted school by school. Any day, the Couches should be placing velvet ropes at the door.