Why UK’s new tight ends coach is not trying to be the next ‘Big Dog’ on staff
The sheer volume of new faces on the Kentucky football roster was impossible to ignore as fans surrounded the Wildcat practice fields during the annual Fan Day festivities shortly after the start of preseason camp last week.
But it was not a missing player that was most jarring in that scene compared to previous years.
It was a missing coach. For the first time in Mark Stoops’ 13-season tenure as UK coach, his top deputy, Vince Marrow, was not on hand.
There was no Marrow camped out under a tent to field questions at the Wildcats’ preseason media day as normal. He was not circling the field at Fan Day to pause for pictures with fans shouting, “Big Dog, over here.” He was not cruising among the players with a high-five or shout of encouragement during the practice’s opening stretching drills.
Marrow is instead doing those things for Kentucky’s archrival, Louisville, as the Cardinals’ new executive director of player personnel. Meanwhile, even the most dedicated of supporters on hand for UK’s fan day practice likely needed to pull out their phone and consult the headshots on the team’s online roster to identify Marrow’s replacement on the practice field.
And that’s OK with new tight ends coach Derek Shay.
“Obviously, I’ll always be me,” Shay told the Herald-Leader after a recent practice. “My job is to lean on my experiences in the past and be me. … Why Vince had success, every coach has to be who they are, and don’t be anything different. And so that’s what I try to lean on, is that’s kind of my personality and coach to that.”
Shay and Marrow worked together last season with Marrow as tight ends coach and Shay an offensive analyst in his first year on Stoops’ UK staff.
When Louisville confirmed Marrow’s hire in June, there was no shortage of speculation among Kentucky fans that Stoops would turn to former Wildcat tight end and graduate assistant C.J. Conrad to fill the opening on his staff. Instead, just four days later UK announced Shay had been promoted to tight ends coach.
“Shay’s been a really good friend of mine for a long, long time,” said offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan, who previously worked with Shay at Missouri. “It always comes down to consistency. I’ve always felt exactly who he’s going to be every single day, whether things are going well or you’re facing adversity.
“He’s got a wealth of knowledge in both the run game, the pass game. I know, certainly in our time at Missouri, he was a huge catalyst of what happened there. I think the fresh perspective has been good here for our tight ends as well.”
After playing offensive line at Western Illinois and Eastern Illinois, he began his coaching career as a student assistant working with the tight ends and offensive line at Eastern Illinois in 2011. He then worked with the offensive line or tight ends in coaching stops at Bowling Green, Warren Central High School in Indianapolis, IMG Academy in Florida, McNeese State, LSU, Missouri and Marshall.
During his stint as a graduate assistant at LSU from 2020-22 he held the same duties as a full-time position coach working with two SEC All-Freshman Team selections (Arik Gilbert and Jack Bech).
“He has a lot of experience with the tight end position, obviously,” UK senior tight end Josh Kattus said. “… He knows what he’s doing. He’s already taught us so much, and I really like his coaching demeanor, and I think I’m really excited to get a full season under him.”
Ask a UK tight end about Shay’s coaching style, and it’s almost certain they will point to his teaching ability first.
That is no coincidence considering Shay’s bachelor’s degree is in education and his master’s degree is in liberal arts.
“My family are all educators, so that’s definitely my style,” Shay said. “And there’s also the motivation factor in there too, right? That reality is, as a position coach, you’ve got to give them the skill instruction to go play their best, then you got to motivate them to go play their best.
“So the teaching element is the first step of that, and that’s what I try to pride myself in.”
Preseason buzz about Kentucky utilizing the tight ends more in the passing game was ever present during Marrow’s tenure, but offensive line struggles in recent years have increased the need to use the tight ends as extra blockers. Conrad remains the only Kentucky tight end to record even 300 receiving yards in a season since UK Hall of Famer Jacob Tamme departed for the NFL after the 2007 season, but Shay at least inherits one of the most promising prospects at the position UK has featured over the last 20 years.
Former Covington Catholic star Willie Rodriguez caught five passes for 94 yards as a freshman in 2024 despite spending most of the year third on the depth chart. His potential appeared to be a factor in the departure of multiple UK tight ends to the transfer portal in December.
Now, Rodriguez and Kattus lead a group that also features transfer blocking specialists Henry Boyer and Elijah Brown and freshman Mikkel Skinner, a four-star recruit.
“I love what I’m seeing there,” UK coach Mark Stoops said of Shay’s early impact. “He immediately, within a day or two of being promoted, at least verbally by me, hit the ground running, did amazing in recruiting. He’s done a wonderful job in the classroom, as well.”
Marrow was one of the highest-paid position coaches in the country with a $1.3 million annual salary. Shay will cost UK a fraction of that with a $300,000 annual salary on a short-term contract that runs through signing day in February.
Shay’s contract includes a clause that allows him to move back into an analyst role if Stoops elects to hire a different full-time assistant when the calendar is more convenient for a full search for Marrow’s replacement. But considering Shay already has picked up a commitment in the high school class of 2026 (Michigan prep tight end Lincoln Watkins) there is a real opportunity for him to justify Stoops’ decision to promote him for this season.
If his attention to detail and teaching can help spark a breakout season from Rodriguez and the other tight ends, it certainly will be much easier for fans to stop noticing Marrow’s absence.
“I’m maybe a different style, but hopefully that’s why we’re successful,” Shay said. “I think just being who you are is important, and there’s a lot of ways to do it, right? There’s a lot of ways to skin a cat, there’s a lot of lot of ways to coach this game, but being who you are is probably the most important thing.”