With due respect to national landscape and its Heisman candidates, a genuflect this week please, for running backs in Kentucky.

In Bowling Green, Western Kentucky’s Bobby Rainey is National running back of the week after a three touchdown and 206 rushing yards showing at Hilltopper homecoming last week. He had 99 yards in the fourth quarter pacing Western to a home win for the first time since Mister Obama was a senator.

In Lexington, CoShik Williams became the newest (cool) name to pencil into Cinderella Story of the Week. In front of a less than capacity crowd (don’t laugh) at Commonwealth Stadium, CoShik had Kentucky fans on their feet Saturday, staring at one another: “Who IS that guy?” and “Where’s HE been?”

Numbers – 148 yards on 22 carries – earned him a place on the SEC best of the best list above Alabama’s quarterback A.J. McCarron and LSU’s defensive line.

And, in Paintsville, J.J. Jude. Johnson Central’s regular season finale at Belfry this Friday has subplots worthy of a television script. The home team Pirates are 9-0, a 3-A title threat … again; and, as of this week, Phillip Haywood is winningest coach in Kentucky high school history, 346 and counting.

Across the field Johnson Central is 7-3 and features Kentucky rushing leader J.J. Jude. A senior tailback with 7,986 yards rushing on his resume’. For those counting, that’s four miles-plus. For those still counting, Jude was stopped cold at Ashland Blazer last week, 81 yards. Belfry will be tougher.

Still, Mr. Football candidate Jude needs just 239 yards to eclipse Derek Homer’s 8,224 yards at Fort Knox High (1994-96).

This week, we celebrate running backs – Bobby Rainey, CoShik Williams and J.J. Jude. Keep an eye on their encores.

QUARTERBACK LAND

Flash, flare, numbers and media make Kentucky a Quarterback Land most seasons. This year Pat Towles at Highlands and Zeke Pike at Dixie Heights have secured all-state credentials and signed college scholarships Meanwhile, Breathitt County High is 9-0 in no small part because of rising QB Richard Trent. Coach Coach Mike Holcomb’s latest protege’, through eight wins (nine now), Trent completed 62 of 98 passes for 1,400-plus yards and 17 touchdowns along with 800 yards rushing and 14 touchdowns. He’s a junior.

MILESTONES & HAYWOOD

When ballots are cast for Kentucky Sports Person of the Year at year’s end, I hope voters skip over the usuals John Calipari, Rick Pitino, horse-of-the-year and whoever is leading point-maker at Kentucky, and go straight to Phillip Haywood.

Humble, but with appropriately delegated credit, Belfry High School’s football coach saw his name moved to top of Kentucky High School Coaches Wins List last week – 346 and counting.

Beyond the numbers … Haywood used his after-game moments to share, acknowledge and inspire. He credited Pirate fans, coaches, players, former players and most important, every kid hungry for a hero, a role model in a time when so many in competitive athletics ignore ‘all that’ for worship of money.

A Prestonsburg native, Haywood knows his good fortune came from learning the finer points of his trade along the way, particularly Jim Walton at Tates Creek and a longtime favorite of mine, Jim DeVries at Meade County.

Haywood was destined to teach and coach football for Belfry. In local parlance, that would be Pond Creek Nation.

TOM JURICH, PIONEER

University of Louisville director of athletics Tom Jurich has pioneered a new wrinkle to college moneyball. Maybe. In a seven year contract extension for football coach Charlie Strong, Jurich issued $3.5 million in “loyalty bonuses.”

Loyalty bonuses?

Lemme get this straight. Coach signs a good faith contract with a buyout clause naturally, but his boss is compelled to add a 3.5 million dollar for loyalty insurance? Jurich has pioneered a pay scale.

Irony? Few weeks back basketball coach Rick Pitino complained about Pittsburgh and Syracuse’s lack of loyalty to the Big East, leaving the Big East for the ACC. If only Jurich had been Big East commissioner he would have had a solution. Call Pitt and Syracuse to account for their loyalty bonus.

JUST WONDERING DEPT.

Few weeks ago Brandon Knight’s mother Tonya told media her son had no regrets about leaving Kentucky after a semester.

Drafted but not yet signed with the Detroit Pistons, Knight spent his summer working out at UK and attending classes. He told Detroit media he won’t join the rush of players going overseas because of the lockout.

Consider though, gifted 19-year-old who loves his sport and competing watches unemployed as more NBA games are cancelled and a season in jeopardy, while Kentucky is ranked No. 2 and scheduled for national television more than a dozen times this winter.

Knight has no regrets? I wonder.

WORTH REPEATING DEPT.

Minnesota coach Tubby Smith had a cancer scare last year. The former coach at Kentucky had a prostate tumor removed. At media day last week, Tubby was aglow.

“I’m inspired and grateful,” he told reporters. “… I get another chance. You don’t get that many opportunities, and if that’s the worst thing that is going to happen to me in my career, sometimes that can be a pretty good thing.”

PARTING SHOT

Sports Illustrated’s weekly Sign of the Apocalypse missed one last week. In Alabama Crimson Tide zealot Harvey Updyke, who poisoned Auburn’s longtime symbolic oak tree at Toomer’s Corners, asked that charges against him be reduced to misdemeanors. In an Associated Press report, Updyke said, Alabama “has explicitly set the value of an oak tree at $20.”

And so it goes.