Why one former Kentucky football captain is encouraged by Wildcats’ latest transfer haul
When a fan submitted a question to Mark Stoops during a November episode of his weekly radio show suggesting transfers from smaller programs had been successful at UK, the Wildcats’ head coach did not need long to find an example supporting the argument.
“They have, yeah,” Stoops said. “A guy like Zion (Childress) jumps out at us. … Marques Cox. And so, yes, I think we look at all that, and some of the better players are coming up at many different schools. Not just at our school, at other SEC schools as well.”
Childress arrived at UK as a transfer from Texas State. Cox transferred to UK from Northern Illinois. Both were key multi-year starters for the Wildcats. Add kicker Alex Raynor, who left UK as the school’s career record holder in field goal percentage (92.6) after transferring from Georgia Southern, and three of the most successful transfers on the roster last season came from Group of Five conference programs.
To be clear, the biggest successes among Stoops’ previous UK transfers (Wan’Dale Robinson, Will Levis, Ray Davis and others) came from Power Four conference programs, but the hit percentage on transfers who were buried on the depth chart at traditional powers has been disappointing.
The size of Kentucky’s 2025 transfer class means Stoops and his staff had to look to a variety of sources to fill a myriad of holes on the roster, but there also was a clear emphasis on mining small programs for experienced talent. Of the 19 transfers UK signed in the winter window, 11 played for Group of Five or FCS programs last season.
“Hopefully they have that same mentality that I have and they don’t just feel like they made it because they got to a higher level,” Childress told the Herald-Leader in a recent interview while he prepares for the NFL draft. “But I feel like they’ll have a good year if those guys can help mold the culture and just bring a lot more hunger back around the program.”
Childress, who played safety and nickel back for Kentucky, was not a perfect player last year as he was not immune from the issues that led to a disappointing season for the secondary, but he vastly exceeded expectations based on his transfer hype when he signed with the Wildcats prior to the 2022 season.
After starting 14 of 24 games across two seasons at Texas State, Childress eased into action at UK as a key backup in 2022 before seizing a starting job in 2023. He started every game across the next two seasons, serving as a team captain in both 2023 and 2024.
In 38 games at UK, Childress totaled 148 tackles, 10 tackles for loss and three sacks.
“I’m a firm believer that when I first got to Kentucky, they did not expect me to become the player that I became,” Childress said. “And that’s just simply off when they recruited me, they recruited me as a depth piece, not a piece to come in and play. And I ended up proving to them that I was able to play on a level, and actually got some burn pretty early on at Kentucky.”
Childress credits his parents for instilling a mindset that made him embrace an underdog role throughout his college career.
After playing quarterback for his Texas high school, Childress found scholarship offers hard to come by. His transition to defense at Texas State came with a boost in confidence that eventually led him to enter the transfer portal in hopes of being challenged at the highest level of college football.
Now, Childress finds himself in a similar situation after not being invited to the NFL scouting combine. Instead, he will hope a good showing at the Hula Bowl will be enough to draw the interest of teams at UK’s Pro Day in March. The fact that more scouts are likely to be in attendance then to watch former UK teammates Deone Walker and Maxwell Hairston, who both are projected as borderline first-round prospects, could help Childress impress enough to earn a Day 3 selection or free agent contract.
“I think people should know it doesn’t matter where you start,” Childress said. “It’s all about where you finish. I’m kind of dealing with that now. My college career is over, so like, what’s done in college? It matters for a little bit, but after a while, soon, it won’t matter anymore, and I have to prove myself again. And it doesn’t matter if I get drafted in the seventh round or last pick of the draft, if I go undrafted and only one team gives me an opportunity.”
Kentucky could certainly benefit from more players adopting that mindset in 2025.
Childress pointed to the effect of name, image and likeness deals with UK’s collective as an issue for the Wildcats’ locker room culture during a disappointing 2024 season. He also did not exempt UK’s coaches from blame for the issues.
“I would say, like paying the wrong guys,” Childress said. “Holding people accountable is probably the biggest thing. But I think from what I’m hearing, they’re getting back to that — holding people accountable, just setting the standard at a higher level, and hopefully that just like sticks throughout the whole year.”
Childress’s call for more accountability and discipline in the locker room echoes the comments from safety Ty Bryant and wide receiver Ja’Mori Maclin in the immediate aftermath of the season-ending loss to Louisville.
Kentucky will surely need leadership from the returning players to set that tone as well as an amended approach from the coaching staff to the NIL and transfer portal era. But the addition of other transfers like Childress hungry to prove themselves against more difficult competition could be a key component in that rebuild as well.
“Where I came from, Texas State, NIL was legal — like you could legally make money off your name, image and likeness — but that opportunity wasn’t available to me and my teammates, based off of the institution that we were at,” Childress said. “There were no boosters really funding that into the program and all that.
“And then I get to Kentucky, where guys are getting like six-figure, seven-figure deals and feel like they made it already. And then I just didn’t want that to be me. Anybody asking about NIL, I always tell them that getting paid in college is not the end goal. And so when you have somebody with that type of mentality that just wants to prove themselves, it’s not all about just getting the money in college. It’s about playing football on the highest level. For me, I changed a lot of people’s mindset around me.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 7:00 AM.