Kentucky’s defense was stingy this season. EKU’s new coach played a key role.
Walt Wells has coached the offensive side of the ball since he was an assistant at Cumberland University in 1994.
So, naturally, University of Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops felt like he should assist the Wildcats’ defensive coaches this season — who better to help scout opposing offenses than a man who has been coaching them for the last 25 years?
“Mark wanted me to break down the offense so they could understand how to attack it,” Wells told the Herald-Leader in a phone interview Monday night. “… I got to go in there and sit in the meetings all spring, all fall camp and all season and learn what the ins and outs are of the defense.”
Wells, who on Monday was named the head football coach at Eastern Kentucky University, was a quality control assistant for the Wildcats last year and this year. The UK defense that allowed only 18.4 points per game this season? His reports were among the first delivered to Brad White as he prepared his game plan each week.
“He’s done a phenomenal job,” Wells said of UK’s first-year defensive coordinator.
Wells was in an uncommon position of looking ahead to the next opponent: While Kentucky perfected what it was trying to do against one opponent in a given week, he was tasked with identifying data — receivers’ best routes, quarterback tells, etc. — UK might be able to capitalize on by the time it got around to the team waiting in the on-deck circle.
Now he’s going from behind the scenes to his first head coaching gig.
“I think that’s something that everybody, when they get into the profession, wants to work toward,” Wells said. “Some people get it really quick and some people it takes a little while, like myself. But it’s been worth the wait, cause EKU’s a great place. It’s great to be back home.”
Road to EKU
Wells coached twice previously at EKU: his first stint was under Roy Kidd from 1997-2002 following his third year as offensive coordinator at Cumberland. He then returned to Richmond to coach under another Kidd acolyte and current UK special teams coordinator Dean Hood in the 2015.
Between those stops he was an assistant at Western Kentucky (2003-2012), South Florida (2013) and New Mexico State (2014). He coached the offensive line at Tennessee for two years under Butch Jones before joining the Wildcats.
Wells’ bread-and-butter is the offensive line — several of his former players went on to garner all-conference honors at his respective stops, including Tennessee’s Trey Smith, one of the top offensive linemen in the SEC.
“The last four years in the SEC will teach you a lot about play up front,” Wells said.
He was on WKU’s staff when the Hilltoppers defeated Kentucky, 32-31, in overtime in 2012. That group the year before gained bowl eligibility but was left sitting without an invitation; that slight fueled the team all offseason and it unleashed its rage in Nashville on Sept. 15.
“It took every effort we had to win the game and it was fun,” Wells said. “Those guys believed they could do it, and that’s what you gotta do. You’ve gotta believe and you’ve gotta trust that you can go out there and make those plays. And they did. “
Coming home
EKU has won 21 Ohio Valley Conference championships and played in as many postseasons, but it hasn’t won a conference title since 2011 or made the playoffs since 2014. The Colonels are coming off a 7-5 campaign, after which the contract of fourth-year head coach Mark Elder was not renewed; he was 21-24 overall.
Wells’ ties to the university helped get his foot in the door, almost certainly, but the breadth of his experience throughout nearly three decades of coaching had to be attractive for a program trying to restore its former glory. He acknowledged that talent differences exist between FCS and FBS Group of Five and Power Five programs, but there are some through lines.
“Winning is winning at all levels. The young men that you coach and influence and have a chance to change their levels, at all levels, all that’s important,” Wells said. “That’s what you get into coaching for, is to affect young men and the people in your program in a positive way.”
Wells is officially on the clock at EKU but will offer some light assistance to UK as it prepares for the Belk Bowl.
“They’ll be fine without me,” he said with a laugh.
This story was originally published December 10, 2019 at 8:29 AM.
