New era of college football offers path for quick turnaround for Kentucky
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky rebuilds roster with 24 Division I transfers after 4-8 season in 2024.
- More than half of Kentucky's scholarship players will debut for the team in 2025.
- Coach Mark Stoops targets quick cohesion to navigate high roster turnover.
By now, offensive guard Joshua Braun is well aware of the work it takes to build cohesion on and off the field for a college football team.
Playing for his third school in what will be his sixth and final season, Braun will be counted on to serve an important role in a rebuilt Kentucky offensive line in his one season as a Wildcat. He’s been here before, brought into a program as a transfer for hire, having moved from Florida to Arkansas two years ago.
But during a team retreat in preseason camp, Braun was reminded just how much work is to be done on a roster where more than half the scholarship players will suit up for Kentucky for the first time this fall.
“It’s something we were lamenting on the trip when we were playing Risk,” Braun said, recounting a board game battle between himself, left tackle Shiyazh Pete, center Jagger Burton and tight end Josh Kattus. “… Because it turns out that (Alex) Wollschlaeger loves Risk. I love Risk. Pete loves Risk. And we didn’t know this until this past week. We could have been playing Risk every Friday night for the past 20 weeks.
“It’s those things that you miss whenever you go to different schools, you don’t really know the guys as well. You just have to get to that point quicker. And I think I’m sad that we didn’t discover our love of Risk until now, but at the end of the day, I feel like we’re in it. We’re in a good spot to face the season together.”
For Kentucky coach Mark Stoops, the path to bouncing back from a disappointing 4-8 2024 season was to rebuild most of the Wildcat roster.
In addition to the normal attrition that comes from graduation, Kentucky lost cornerback Maxwell Hairston and defensive tackle Deone Walker to the NFL draft with eligibility remaining. Previous starters Barion Brown, Dane Key, Jordan Dingle and Keeshawn Silver left via the transfer portal along with a host of contributing backups.
To fill those holes, Kentucky signed 24 transfers from Division I programs. Every position on offense and defense but safety will feature at least one transfer.
The turnover is most pronounced on the offensive line, where Braun (left guard), Pete (left tackle) and Wollschlaeger (right tackle) are expected to start after picking Kentucky from the transfer portal. Transfers Evan Wibberley, Rob Fogler and Cameron Jones could add additional depth along the line.
“I’ve talked about the turnover in roster,” Stoops said. “You are coming off a season like that, I feel like it was needed in certain places, and that’s a good thing.
“We needed to continue to develop the young players in our program, and obviously we needed to attack the portal, like most people. Obviously, that’s a higher number than we’ve ever had here, but again, I felt like it was necessary.”
There should be room for a handful of freshmen to contribute this fall as well, but the ability to plug so many holes with experienced college players offers hope for the type of quick turnaround that was unrealistic when Stoops inherited a 2-10 program in 2013.
That plan worked for Indiana and South Carolina, among others, a year ago.
The Hoosiers went from 3-9 in 2023 to the expanded playoff in 2024, finishing at 11-2. Playing against a similar SEC gauntlet to the one Kentucky will face this year, South Carolina went from 5-7 in 2023 to 9-4 in 2024.
“You just better build a good team,” Stoops said. “It’s kind of like in the NFL. … We fell short last year. That’s on me. I’ve said it over and over again.
“We didn’t have all the pieces in place. It wasn’t like everything was a mess. We just didn’t have a good enough team, and that’s on me.”
Of course, for the massive transfer haul to pay dividends for Kentucky, Stoops and his staff need to prove more adept at picking the right transfers than they were a year ago, when the much-hyped 2024 transfer class failed to live up to expectations.
There appears to have been a change in transfer priorities over the offseason, though.
No longer is the transfer class built largely around former blue-chip recruits Kentucky lost to powerhouse programs in high school who entered the transfer portal in search of more playing time. Instead, the 2025 class leans heavily on players who had little to no previous connection to Kentucky but have already found college success in smaller programs.
Quarterback Zach Calzada spent the past two seasons at FCS Incarnate Word. Pete and running back Seth McGowan came to Kentucky from New Mexico State. Wollschlaeger previously starred at Bowling Green. Nose guard David Gusta came from Washington State and defensive end Mi’Quise Humphrey-Grace came from FCS South Dakota.
Each of those players will be counted on to immediately step into Kentucky’s starting lineup.
Stoops praised the work of his strength and conditioning staff in helping those transfers prepare for the greater physical challenge that will come with playing in the SEC, but until they prove capable of performing against the best competition in college football there will be doubts about how smoothly that transition will go.
Wholesale changes on offense, where only four of the 11 projected starters were on the roster last season, also lessens the benefits of Stoops finally featuring the same offensive coordinator in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2020.
“We certainly still have to address the fact of our 57 players, 30 of them are new,” offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “It’s a good challenge. It’s a good blend.”
Accelerating the assimilation of so many transfers has been one of the top offseason priorities, leading director of player development Dean Hood to lead a program where players are tasked with getting to know their new teammates better. UK coaches made a point during the winter of visiting players directly in their homes to try and forge something close to the bond they would have normally developed over years of recruiting a player out of high school.
Playing Risk during a team trip to the lake might not help Kentucky players gain an extra yard against Texas or bring down a ball carrier against Georgia. But for an unprecedented Kentucky rebuilding effort, the impact of those off-field activities cannot be overlooked either.
“I could say we only knew the transfers (last year) because (they were) in the locker room every day,” sophomore wide receiver Hardley Gilmore said. “Now, it’s a bond, like a real family.”