‘If this thing happens will you come?’ UK assistant was a must hire for Liam Coen.
New University of Kentucky wide receivers coach Scott Woodward is used to playing important roles for offensive coordinator Liam Coen, and vice versa. Woodward was Coen’s backup quarterback throughout college. Coen was the best man in Woodward’s wedding.
“Coach Coen and I have been, pretty much, best friends since 2005,” said Woodward, noting the year that they were both freshmen at the University of Massachusetts. “We’re pretty close. I went to L.A. and visited him every chance I could.”
After Coen was first contacted about UK’s offensive coordinator position last December, Woodward isn’t sure if he was the first person to whom Coen reached out.
“But I bet you I was probably his second,” said Woodward, a quality control coach at Pittsburgh the last two seasons. “He said, ‘If this thing happens will you come?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
Woodward this week recalled a funny story from 2017, when Coen was the offensive coordinator at Maine and he was the quarterbacks coach at UMass. Their teams squared off against each other at Fenway Park that season.
“He went for two (points) against us, and it was a little trick play, and the next thing I know, my phone in my pocket buzzes,” Woodward said. “I happened to look at it and it’s just him saying, ‘Ha ha.’”
Sixteen years of friendship has laid the groundwork for a trusting in-game relationship. Coen counts on Woodward to let him know if there’s a look available that he’s not seeing on the field, or if UK is lining up in a way that’s not going to work downfield.
Kentucky’s second score in the Wildcats’ 45-10 win over Louisiana Monroe came on a post route run by Josh Ali that resulted in a 58-yard touchdown, the Cats’ longest in the season opener. That play was not in UK’s game plan coming into last Saturday’s contest. It happened as the result of information relayed from upstairs. Woodward described it a “group effort” when asked if he should be given the credit for that call.
“On the first deep play-action route, the corner was playing outside, so I said, ‘Hey, if you want it, you got the post,’ so we came back to it and the next play was a touchdown,” Woodward said. “I’m glad it worked out that way.”
Woodward — or “Coach Woody,” by which he goes on Twitter — has been acting as UK’s wide receivers coach since former receivers coach Jovon Bouknight was reassigned to a quality control position following the end of his suspension from the program. He can sense an easing of tension surrounding the position group he’s overtaken.
After Saturday’s game, which saw two receivers, Ali and Wan’Dale Robinson, post 100-yard games and another, Isaiah Epps, have a career-best day, Woodward tweeted that “things are changing in Lexington.”
“If you were a wide receiver in the past at the University of Kentucky, I don’t see how there was much excitement,” Woodward said. “There’s 60 plays in a game and you’re going out to block for 55 of them. These guys, the reason they block so well in the run game and give such good effort, they know that’s only going to help them in the pass game. They come off the ball fast and DBs gotta respect their speed and all that. ... They’re all excited for each other. They don’t care who gets the credit. I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys.”
Next game
Missouri at Kentucky
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
TV: SEC Network
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 1-0 (0-0 SEC); Missouri 1-0 (0-0)
Series: Kentucky leads 7-4
Last meeting: Missouri won 20-10 on Oct. 24, 2020, at Columbia, Mo.
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
