Is Devin Leary ready to face SEC defenses? Improvement needed as competition increases.
READ MORE
Preview: Kentucky at Vanderbilt
Click below to read more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s preview coverage ahead of Saturday’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt football game at noon in Nashville.
Expand All
In surveying Southeastern Conference beat reporters for their preseason rankings of the league quarterbacks, one reason for doubting Kentucky’s Devin Leary was mentioned multiple times.
Sure, Leary’s 2021 season was arguably better than any single season from the rest of the SEC’s quarterbacks, but those numbers came at North Carolina State. Throwing 35 touchdowns and just five interceptions was impressive, but how would those statistics translate against SEC defenses?
The process of finding out starts Saturday at Vanderbilt.
“You look at Clemson, you look at Florida State, you look at some of those teams, some good defenses, some good pass rushers, some good speed out there that he’s gone up against,” Kentucky offensive coordinator Liam Coen said of Leary. “... But, I don’t know if it’s every week. In the SEC it’s every single week, week in and week out, you’re going to face the top-tier pass rushers and some of the top secondaries in the country. It’s something we’ll probably have to get used to a little bit more.”
During Leary’s breakout 2021 season, he passed for 238 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions against a Clemson defense that finished the season ranked eighth nationally in yards allowed per game. He faced two other top-30 defenses that season: Syracuse (303 yards, two touchdowns, zero interceptions) and Boston College (251 yards, three touchdowns, zero interceptions).
His only previous experience against an SEC team also came in 2021 in a loss to Mississippi State. He completed 61.2% of his passes for 303 yards, one touchdown and one interception in that game.
Of course, it is not as simple as saying all SEC defenses are better than all ACC defenses.
The Vanderbilt defense Leary will face Saturday has already looked vulnerable against Mountain West opponents Hawaii and UNLV. No one will confuse the Commodores with ranked foes Florida and Georgia, Kentucky’s next two opponents.
“I just think carrying over that same mentality I had in the ACC over into the SEC, but now it’s my job to do a little bit more homework on different defenses, defensive fronts, linebackers, safeties, corners,” Leary told the Herald-Leader before the season. “All the guys around this league are very, very talented. You see them all over the SEC and the NFL. I think at the end of the day, just like anyone in football, you’ve got to do a really, really good job of preparing.”
That’s the experience Kentucky running back Ray Davis found after transferring from Temple to Vanderbilt earlier in his career.
“I think a lot of us, we get stuck on the conference, SEC, MAC, FCS, all that stuff,” Davis said. “I think you’ve got to look at it from the players. We’re all the same. We all bleed the same, we’re all cut the same in a way and we all have similar abilities. I think from that standpoint, the physical nature of it, I think all defenses are the same.
“... I would say from the coordinator standpoint, you look at these top coordinators who have been able to prove it year in and year out. I think that’s the hardest thing. You don’t know what coordinators are going to throw at you, from their fronts to their blitzes to their schemes.”
There is precedent for an ACC quarterback transferring to the SEC and actually improving his statistical production.
In two seasons at Virginia Tech, Hendon Hooker threw for just less than 3,000 yards with 22 touchdowns and seven interceptions. In two seasons at Tennessee, Hooker threw for more than 6,000 yards with 58 touchdowns and five interceptions to work his way into a third-round NFL draft selection.
But the high-octane offense Hooker ran at Tennessee was vastly different from the one he ran at Virginia Tech, making it difficult to compare his production at each stop. The same could be said of Leary, who is transitioning from a no-huddle spread attack at N.C. State to a pro-style scheme at Kentucky.
Through three non-conference games, Leary ranks fourth in the SEC in passing yards per game (285) but 11th of 13 qualifying quarterbacks in completion percentage (61.1). There have been plenty of highlights, like his perfect touchdown pass to Tayvion Robinson against EKU and his escape from multiple tackles to find Ray Davis for a 58-yard catch-and-run against Akron, but the pinpoint accuracy coaches and teammates raved about Leary possessing has gone missing at times too.
“Just playing fast, executing, anticipating, playing faster but not in a hurry, those are things that we’ve been talking about because that has shown up on some of the tape,” Coen said. “Like the throws to Dane (Key) the other day, they’re just not hitting. I think things are sped up a little bit at times for the both of them, and we have to just settle in, calm down, execute.”
Leary’s adjustment to Coen’s pro-style scheme might ultimately be more telling than comparing the SEC defenses he will face to the ones he often excelled against in the ACC.
He will need help too. It will be difficult to judge Leary’s transition if the offensive line struggles or Kentucky’s young receivers do not make strides as route-runners and pass-catchers.
“This is the best conference, I think, in the country,” said Robinson, who made the ACC-to-SEC transition as a transfer from Virginia Tech last season. “Competition week in and week out is going to be difficult, but it’s football at the end of the day. You’ve just got to do what you’re coached to make plays.”
Saturday
Kentucky at Vanderbilt
When: Noon
TV: SEC Network
Records: Kentucky 3-0 (0-0 SEC), Vanderbilt 2-2 (0-0)
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Series: Kentucky leads 48-43-4
Last meeting: Vanderbilt won 24-21 on Nov. 12, 2022, in Lexington
This story was originally published September 21, 2023 at 9:56 AM.
