In a time of despair for much of the Big Blue Nation, there have been few pieces of positive news, the largest being the return of Liam Coen as Kentucky football’s offensive coordinator.
On Thursday, Coen reintroduced himself to the Kentucky media after a year with the Los Angeles Rams. Visibly excited, Coen talking about this coming season, how he has grown as a coach, and much more. Take a look at what he had to say!
On assessing the current roster and looking ahead to this coming season.
“I was able to watch from afar a little bit this year and when they were on TV. Over the last few days, I’ve been really watching the game films. Excited about some of the young talent. Excited about some of the guys that are deciding to come back, Brendan Bates, [Kenneth] Horsey, and some of those guys that are veterans.
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Those are all things that are nice to be able to have maybe a younger group, new faces, that you can truly look at and evaluate. Whereas you do know you have some of these guys that are coming back, that can help ‘blend’ if you will, teaching and preaching the standard and what we’re trying to accomplish.”
How are you different?
“It’s a good question, I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit. We had some really unfortunate things personnel-wise, schematically things this past year it was not our prototypical year on offense… At the end of the day, it truly is about the players. Having to pivot and adjust to the type of players that we had, they weren’t our starters they didn’t know all of our offensive scheme… Was it always successful? No. Was the end result always what we were looking for? No. It was about the process…
At the end of the day, that’s really all you can hope for in terms of trying to create an environment and a standard in which guys came to practice and meetings every single day with the right enthusiasm, right mindset. Because the culture is strong. Because everything we try to do on a week-to-week basis was about leading confidence. We can we try to give these guys our best effort as coaches each week because we knew we were going to get their best effort on Sundays.”
On QB Devin Leary
“I know the type of kid that he is. He can throw the football very naturally different than Will [Levis]. Each season, each offense. it’s always going to be tweaked a little bit… The quarterback does depend on a lot of the things that you’re going to do schematically. I do believe that this guy can throw the football as good as anybody in the country.
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He wanted to come to Kentucky and obviously to win football games and have an opportunity to win an SEC Championship. Also, to be developed, to be developed into a future NFL quarterback.
A lot of this is going to be about Devin and what he’s comfortable with. It’s his last year of football. I’d be crazy to walk in there and say, ‘this is what you’re doing, and this is how you’re doing it’. I do believe it’s going to be a collaboration. Some of the things that he was successful with in his past, but also some of the things that we know we need to do in order to operate in the SEC.”
On Will Levis
“I think his best football is still ahead of him. I truly believe that he will have a long and successful NFL career. The guy has played through multiple different coordinators in multiple different years. Obviously battled through a ton of injuries. This guy is going to wow them in every shape, form, and fashion.
I mean he’s extremely talented throwing the football. You get him in a room. you get around him, you can feel his confidence. He’ll be able to speak the language and he’ll be able to come into a locker room and get along with the guys. Really excited about Will’s future.”
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On the O-Line and getting back on track after struggling in 2022.
“That’s the number one priority. When we get there, diving into that position group, personnel-wise, schematically, fundamentally, technique, attitude, demeanor. All that needs to get dove into really quickly.
I do rememberthe first time that I came, that was kind of the unit that I never really worried about. I never really worried about if they were going to come to play. I never worried about third and one, not getting a first down. It was never something that crossed my mind when I got there and we had experience, it was different. We had three players on that offensive line that went on to play in the National Football League.
It’s a room, it’s a unit that we need to address and address quickly. You know really the offensive line, if you think about it, that’s more than a third of your unit on a play-to-play basis. If those five are not on the same page, don’t have the right mentality, or aren’t you know doing what they’re supposed to do, it’s really hard to have success as an offense no matter who’s around them.”
On college coaching compared to the NFL.
“[In college] you start to miss the impact that you might have on these guys’ lives. Coming in ‘hey coach, having an issue at home, can we talk?’ ‘Hey coach, my girlfriend dumped me, I need some advice’.
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Those are conversations that I kind of missed. I missed helping when it was a little bit more than football. We missed as a family, having players over for dinner and having the guys around. I have a one-year-old son now that I am excited for him to be around the football facility, and be around our players, to be impacted by them. That’s truly what we missed.”
On his return to Lexington.
“I just want to kind of go somewhere make a real impact. Plant some roots a little bit, be somewhere for a few years you feel really good about. My family, the situation. My dad didn’t come out to California all that much. To have him around you know around me personally, I know is good for me in my life and to be around my son.
Just to be closer to people that care about you, that’s important for your day-to-day growth and health, and I’m excited about that. I’m excited about being back in Lexington, a place that I walked around town and only got support… I’m not in a rush to go anywhere. I want to go try to make an impact and be around somewhere for a little while.”
On recruiting high school quarterbacks, or keep looking in the transfer portal
“I think eventually you want to try to do that, but I mean, depending on how Devin and this thing goes. I’m not sure that we’d be having this discussion if will Levis wasn’t our starting quarterback. If I would have just gone with a high school kid, we wouldn’t be in this situation.
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Yeah, I think eventually you’d like to be able to get somebody that you can start for a few years, but with the way that this thing’s going with the portal, especially at the quarterback position. How many times is a guy just gonna sit and buy his time?… Something like that, I just don’t know how realistic that is in the landscape of college football anymore
You got to believe that if you don’t win the job for your first two years, a lot of these guys are probably going to take off. That’s to each their own. I don’t think that you need to force it.
If you look at the way that these things are working out. If you do your job and you do a nice job recruiting and they’re not pleased with the situation, they’re gonna leave. I don’t really feel like you have to fix it immediately. Do I believe that that’s something we’re gonna you know attend to? Absolutely do.”
On his approach to the RB room, C-Rod no longer there.
“Maybe a little bit more by committee. I haven’t been able to truly evaluate that room as much as I would like to. I think the spring sometimes is a really good time to just really let these guys go out and kind of roll the ball out and let them go and see who’s going to take it over. C-Rod’s not walking back in.
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Gonna roll the football out and whoever can run and execute, gain yards, break tackles, and be the guy in that room, that’s who it’s going to. If it has to be a little bit more by committee, that’s something that we’ll have to do as well. I’m excited about some of the guys in that room but somebody needs to emerge and take it over.
Definitely going to miss handing the football off [to Chris Rodriguez) and knowing we’re gonna gain four yards. That was not scheme, that was him a lot of the times”
Before he transferred to Kentucky, Jamon Dumas-Johnson was an All-American at Georgia, with waves to at least test the NFL draft after winning a National Championship. However, with the decision to play his last collegiate season as a Wildcat, Dumas-Johnson was a cornerstone piece for the Kentucky defense, finishing the season with 7.5 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks during his 11 starts for the team.
His athleticism spoke volumes at Kentucky football’s NFL pro day, where current NFL draft boards now list the linebacker as one of the best athletes at the position and has earned himself a “top 10” feel ahead of the draft. Before pro day, publications such as Bleacher Report had him listed as No. 13 at his position.
Dumas-Johnson proved himself with the highest vertical jump (37.5) and the longest broad jump (10.60) out of the Wildcats who competed in said events, and ran an impressive best 4.50 40-yard dash. At 245 pounds, he also managed to press 16 reps of 225, which could technically be “better” compared to NFL standards, but is impressive nonetheless in hindsight.
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At 23 years old, this linebacker exploits explosiveness, agility and can hawk down any playmaker on the field. Out the 31 NFL teams that attended the event (a Cleveland Browns representative did not attend), one will be getting a prize steal of the draft with Dumas-Johnson.
Alex Raynor had an illustrious season for Kentucky last year, being named to First-Team All-SEC, as a finalist for the Lou Groza award and as SEC Special Teams Player of the Year.
As the record holder for the longest field goal in program history, and arguably one of, if not the, most consistent kickers to ever be a Wildcat, Raynor now looks to the NFL Draft in the next chapter of his book.
Recently, at Kentucky football’s NFL Pro Day on Tuesday, March 11, Raynor kicked off the event with his workout.
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Although he would miss a routine kick for him inside of the 45, he would continue to move back, nailing a 55-yard kick and nearly making a 60-yard kick.
The best moments of his workout came when Raynor would line up behind the UK logo inside of Nutter Field House and would nail a 65-yard field goal.
After charting a 4-8 record in the 2023-24 season, including a 1-7, second-to-last finish in the SEC, Kentucky Football looks lost for the first time in a long time.
It can be argued that the program never really broke through to the “higher echelon” of college football in the first place, but even then, they’ve been consistently better than they were historically known to be. Until now.
With that aforementioned .333 record, the Cats weren’t able to earn a bowl game. That marks the first time since the 2015 season that Kentucky Football won’t appear in postseason competition, and, excluding the 2020 season (for COVID-related reasons,) it’s also the only time the Wildcats have finished under .500 since then.
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What about the last time the team had less than five wins? 2013, in Stoops’ first season. The deeper you dig, the worse it appears.
Losing to Louisville in blowout fashion at the end of last month felt like the straw that broke the Cats’ back. It was clear that whatever would happen next wouldn’t be simply transitional, and thus far, the early offseason has evidenced that.
The Big Move
It began with an exodus. Star wideout Barion Brown elected to transfer to LSU for his senior season. His receiver running mate, Dane Key, left for Nebraska. In addition to the team’s two primary deep threats, Chip Trayanum, the promising back and former Buckeye who spent much of this year battling injuries, took his talents to Toledo.
In total, the Cats have lost nearly two dozen players to the transfer portal, and that’s not even counting the guys headed to the NFL draft (like Deone Walker and Maxwell Hairston,) as well as the graduates.
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To put it bluntly, next year’s team will share little more with the players from this past season than the blue and white on their jerseys. It’s a brutal overhaul, though one Coach Stoops and his staff are trying to get the jump on, to their credit.
Fresh Faces
Among a growing list of incoming transfers, a few names in particular stand out. Chief among them is Zach Calzada, a quarterback whose upcoming season at Kentucky will mark his fifth year playing football in his third different jersey.
The journeyman spent this past season at Incarnate Word, where he threw for 35 touchdowns and only nine interceptions. He completed 344 passes on the year, almost doubling that of his previous two.
Before his two-year stint at IW, Calzada spent the beginnings of his college career at Texas A&M where, among a mixture of steadily improving statistics, he led the Aggies to an impressive home win over the still Saban-led Alabama Crimson Tide. Whether or not his recent success in the Southland Conference will translate back to the SEC is yet to be seen, but, at least on paper, this pickup makes sense for Kentucky following a year of unsparing QB play across the board.
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Along with Calzada, the Cats have hauled in J.J. Hester, a 6 ‘4 senior receiver from Oklahoma, Dante Dowdell, a power back coming off a 12-touchdown season for Nebraska, and Sam Greene, a defensive end transferring in from USC, among a handful of others. We’ll have a team.
Though, even considering the roster turnover, that wasn’t the question. That still remains, “what will that team do?”
Potential vs. Progress
Kentucky is 18-25 in their last three seasons of football; a steady decline that has been made worse by the fact that the program’s outlier 10-3 finish in the 2021 season has since been disqualified by the NCAA due to a rule violation. All in all, the last half-decade has been, at best, barely getting by.
How long will this trend continue? The only thing we know for sure is that nobody is sure. Answering that question requires the analysis and knowing of many moving parts, not all of which are at widespread disposal.
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But this much is clear: the longtime variable nature of Kentucky Football came to a head this year, and the product we’re about to see is going to have to be radically different from the one we’ve just seen in order to right this ship.
For better or worse, the 2024-25 season will likely go down as the most important yet in the Stoops era at UK.
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