New UK OC Joe Sloan is a fan of Cutter Boley, Willie Rodriguez
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Joe Sloan will call plays at Kentucky while using Will Stein’s offensive plan.
- Sloan praises Cutter Boley and Willie Rodriguez as promising talents.
- Staff will pursue portal quarterbacks; linemen plan will be a hybrid approach.
New Kentucky football coach Will Stein may be in Oregon preparing for a College Football Playoff game, but his offensive coordinator is helping lead the roster-building efforts on the ground in Lexington.
“Would be a lot easier if he was on Eastern time,” UK offensive coordinator Joe Sloan joked Wednesday when asked about Stein’s balancing act. “I call in the morning, I’m waking him up. Me or Pat (Biondo), our GM, will call him, and then at night he’ll be rolling for about an hour, and it’s like 11:30. That’s OK, but just a lot of phone calls.
“I think it speaks to who Will is. He’s doing a great job wearing two hats and giving the offensive players in Oregon his attention to make sure that they have the best game plan and are as prepared as possible for their championship run right here in December and January. And I think he’s done a fantastic job of that, while also making sure that we get off on the right foot and take advantage of this time”
Sloan, the former LSU offensive coordinator who was confirmed by UK as Stein’s offensive coordinator Monday, met with reporters Wednesday for the first time since he was hired.
Here are three things we learned about the Wildcats new offensive play-caller:
Joe Sloan is a fan of Cutter Boley, Willie Rodriguez
Among the holdovers from Mark Stoops’ last season as coach, quarterback Cutter Boley and tight end Willie Rodriguez are among the most interesting early case studies for the new staff’s roster priorities.
Both are former Kentucky high school stars and showed enough promise in 2025 to envision them progressing into starring roles next fall, but neither is a finished product. A new staff might view transfers at their positions as possible upgrades.
Stein was evasive when asked about Boley at his introductory news conference, but Sloan was quick to heap praise on the redshirt freshman Wednesday.
“Cutter and I have been around each other every day and excited to work with him,” Sloan said. “Love what he did there during the year. I think he’s got a great future. He’s been great. I recruited him back when he was in high school. We’ve had a long-standing relationship. Fantastic kid, tough, really talented, so it’s been great.”
That was not quite a full-throated endorsement of Boley as Kentucky’s starting quarterback next season, but fans should expect the new staff to be guarded in their comments about current players until it is certain the revenue-sharing and NIL contracts to retain them have been finalized. Those coaches will not want to hype a player they know is likely to leave in the portal. Nor will they want to guarantee starting jobs publicly if they know additions at the position will be made.
Whether Boley is UK’s starter next season or not, Kentucky needs at least one quarterback in the portal. Freshman Brennen Ward and high school signee Matt Ponatoski (if he does not sign a professional baseball contract) would be the only other scholarship quarterbacks on the roster next season.
“Every college football team in America is going to have four quarterbacks in the room,” Sloan said. “You always got to do that, right? … Just like we need 10 receivers or five, six tight ends, whatever it might be. So we’ll do that.”
Transfer interest from powerhouse programs might be even higher in Rodriguez, who caught 23 passes for 310 yards and one touchdown as a sophomore.
“He’s a really good player,” Sloan said. “The vision is we’re going to throw him the ball, and Willie knows that. I’ve shown him many ways. Willie is a really good talent. He’s a really good talent. I think when you look at both Coach Stein’s offense at Oregon and what we did at LSU, the tight end has been a focal point of the offense in the passing game. I think you can create really good matchups with tight ends.”
Joe Sloan will run Will Stein’s offense
Sloan was fired by LSU during the season as part of the staff changes there, so him landing another SEC play-calling job immediately came as a surprise to some. There was speculation he would be the offensive coordinator in name only with Stein still calling plays, like he has done at Oregon the last three years, but that will not be the case.
The plan is for Sloan to call plays for UK, but he will use Stein’s playbook rather than the offense he ran at LSU.
“We’re going to do whatever Will says,” Sloan said. “I’m here to support Will in however he sees this working the best, and we’ll work through some of that. He asked me to come over here and to run the offense through the vision of what the head coach wants it to be. I think that’s your job as an assistant coach: You want to make your head coach the best head coach he can be and run the program, help him run the program the way he sees fit.”
Sloan said there are already similarities between the offense he ran at LSU and Stein’s Oregon scheme. Stein will surely be open to incorporating some of the things Sloan found success with in his previous play-calling stops at LSU and Louisiana Tech.
“But ultimately it’s not going to be Oregon’s offense or LSU’s offense, or whatever that might be,” Sloan said. “It’s going to be Kentucky’s offense, and we’re going to blend. I think we’re going to have other really smart people in the room, and we’re going to build it. And build just a foundation of what we want to do, but then we’re also going to build it around who we have to highlight our strengths on offense. I think we got a lot of really good players here that we can start to build it around. And then we’ll add some, which I think will be really exciting.”
Expect offensive line to be transfer portal priority again
One of the more difficult position groups for the new staff to evaluate will be the offensive line. Kentucky must replace all five starters from 2025 after right guard Jalen Farmer declared for the NFL draft Wednesday. Because the former staff rotated so little on the line last season there is little game film of Kentucky’s backups that shows how ready they are to step into a featured role.
“We have a lot of practice film and a lot of different things that we can evaluate,” Sloan said. “There’s a lot of ways to evaluate that, and we’ll comb through all those things at different positions. That’s not just offensive line, but other positions. There are good young players who maybe didn’t have the reps on the field, but there’s other ways to make those evaluations and make great decisions, and then act on those decisions.”
Sloan deferred to Stein when asked whether the new staff would prioritize building around transfer offensive linemen or developing high school signees at the position over time, but he acknowledged the current roster will need immediate help.
“I think there’s always a short-term plan and long-term plan,” Sloan said. “Short-term plan is to build a championship roster immediately. Long-term plan is what we’re going to do. There will always be a hybrid combination. You’ve got to have young players in your program who you can develop. We believe we’re the best developers in college football. We believe we’re going to create a system that’s going to allow us to develop those guys to their fullest potential.
“So, we want to get guys in the program early and put them through that development program. But then also in college football today, you have to supplement your roster every year. Things happen. Injuries, guys leave, different stuff like that. So, we’ll do both. And I think if you can’t do both nowadays, you’re going to struggle.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2025 at 11:42 AM.