Three takeaways from Kentucky football’s 2023 Media Day

UPDATED AUGUST 04, 2023 8:14 PM
Three takeaways from Friday’s Kentucky Football Media Day at Kroger Field:
1. MARK STOOPS SAYS HE’S LEARNED FROM HIS MISTAKES
Mark Stoops didn’t want to get into specifics. The Kentucky coach rarely does. Still, what Stoops touched on in the spring, he reiterated Friday as fall camp opens. Mistakes were at least partly to blame for last season’s slip back to a 7-6 season. Mistakes made by the head coach.
“The approach has got to be different,” Stoops said Friday. “The transfer portal last year was the first year where it hit me right in the face. . . . That’s not good, bad or indifferent. It was just different.”
What I took the head coach to mean had nothing to do with the players UK took from the transfer portal in 2022. I took it to mean the coach had to learn how to allocate his time. With the transfer portal, NIL, facilities issues, roster changes, staff changes, other administrative headaches, a head coach has to learn how to set priorities and manage time in a college sports world that is changing by the minute.
(Shoot, the way things are going, the SEC might soon announce that Oregon and Florida State have joined the conference. Who knows?)
“You better be ready and willing to accept change or you will be irrelevant very quickly,” Stoops said Friday.
The head coach sets the tone. Always has, always will. It’s obvious that, at least internally, Stoops wants to set a different tone this time around.
2. IT’S GOOD TO HAVE LIAM COEN BACK
Nothing against Rich Scangarello. Things just didn’t work last year with UK’s one-and-done offensive coordinator. Blame it on injuries. Blame it on the scheme. Blame it on Scangarello’s inability to adapt the scheme to his available talent. I would have given Scangarello another year, but I’m not the head coach.
Stoops is the head coach and he was able to coax Coen back to Lexington after the Cats’ 2021 offensive coordinator spent 2022 as the OC of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. Coen’s return doesn’t guarantee anything. He’s not a silver bullet. Still, there’s little doubt his presence has boosted enthusiasm on that side of the ball.
I asked new quarterback Devin Leary if anything had surprised him about his budding relationship with his new play-caller.
“He brings the energy every day, every single day,” said Leary, who transferred to UK from North Carolina State. “When you step on the field, he’s approaching practice like he’s about to suit up and go play. He brings that juice, that energy.”
High hopes surround Liam Coen’s return to Kentucky as offensive coordinator for 2023.
High hopes surround Liam Coen’s return to Kentucky as offensive coordinator for 2023. Brian Simms bsimms@herald-leader.com
3. KENTUCKY WILL FEEL THE HEAT, LITERALLY
Relatively speaking, the weather wasn’t too bad in Lexington on Friday. It was just over 80 degrees when the football Wildcats walked out onto the turf at Kroger Field for their annual team picture, followed by interviews with the media.
Noon on Saturday, Sept. 2 could be a different story. That’s when UK plays visiting Ball State in the 2023 season opener. The temperature could be higher then, much higher, more like what we saw recently in the commonwealth when the temps climbed to the mid-90s and heat indexes hit triple digits.
So does Stoops want more heat in anticipation of that mid-day kickoff in September? And if we are subjected to more scorchers between now and then, how will the coach and players handle practicing in the elements?
Stoops took the second part of the question first. Safety is the most important part, he said. Even though training camps are not what they used to be — no more two-a-days — you have to be smart. Hydration is vital. Precautions are necessary. Even when the team goes indoors to the newly renovated Nutter Field House, the humidity is different than being outside. Stoops said he trusts his training staff.
As for whether the coach wants some 90-plus weather before the opener, Stoops replied, “You know what I’m gong to say. It is what it is. Bring it on.”