Kentucky football summer questions: Can cornerbacks move past 2025 struggles?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The returning cornerback group was decimated by injuries in 2025.
- New staff added Gardner-Webb transfer Hasaan Sykes and retained several returners.
- Defensive coordinator Jay Bateman plans to employ a more aggressive press-man scheme.
Each week leading up to the start of Kentucky football preseason camp, the Herald-Leader will take a look at one significant question facing Will Stein’s first UK team.
This week, we’re looking at the cornerbacks. The new staff added just one transfer in the room, choosing to rely on a returning group that was decimated by injuries in 2025. Can the returning cornerbacks learn from last season’s struggles? How different will their role be in defensive coordinator Jay Bateman’s scheme?
Cornerback was supposed to be a strength for Kentucky football entering the 2025 season.
Multi-year starter JQ Hardaway was back, and former Michigan transfer DJ Waller looked poised for a breakout season. Instead, Waller played just a handful of snaps due to a nagging hamstring injury, and the players behind him had little more injury luck.
Hardaway started all 12 games as a senior, but four different players started at the cornerback position opposite him.
After coach Mark Stoops was fired, Waller elected to transfer to Louisville, reuniting with former UK recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow, who had recruited him to Lexington. Hardaway graduated.
The new staff added Gardner-Webb transfer Hasaan Sykes to the room but spent most of its roster-building focus in convincing the group of fill-ins for Waller last season to return. Now, Terhyon Nichols, Grant Grayton, Nasir Addison and others will look to learn from last season’s experience in what is expected to be a more aggressive defensive scheme.
All eyes on Terhyon Nichols
Asked during the last week of spring practice to name a spring MVP, Bateman first demurred before deciding to single out one of the returning cornerbacks anyway.
“I think Terhyon Nichols is a really good player, and I’m really glad he’s here,” Bateman said. “At the last place I was at, we lost (in the playoff), I jumped on a plane and flew to see him and his mom, and that was the right decision. He’s a tremendous player. Really smart competitor. I think he’s everything you want in a football player.
“Man, I’m really glad he’s here and he’s playing at the level he is.”
The last staff was high on Nichols’ potential too, frequently labeling him as the third starter at the position entering last season, even though Hardaway and Waller were listed first on the depth chart. Nichols was unable to fully seize on Waller’s absence, though, due to his own injury issues.
The Cincinnati native started six games after Waller was sidelined in the season opener but missed the final five games with an undisclosed injury. Nichols also missed four games due to injury as a freshman in 2024.
With Nichols sidelined, Grayton, a freshman, and Addison received starts. Addison also missed time with an injury down the stretch before electing to preserve his redshirt season by playing in just four games. Addison looked poised to use his final season of eligibility elsewhere when he entered the transfer portal in January but eventually elected to stay at UK to play for the new coaching staff.
“When you’re a young corner and you get thrown to the fire a little bit, it goes one of two ways,” Bateman said. “They either kind of get shell shocked, and you got to kind of love them back, or they kind of get, like, a little bit of. ‘OK, I think I can do this and get better.’”
The new staff will hope the returning group falls into the latter category after Kentucky ranked 105th nationally in passing yards allowed per game (239.9) last season.
Corners will play a new role after staff changes
It is difficult to criticize the success Stoops and former UK defensive coordinator Brad White built on defense at the height of their Kentucky tenure, but fans grew frustrated with a bend-but-don’t-break strategy that emphasized limiting big plays. Now those critics should get their wish with Bateman calling a more aggressive defense.
“We’re gonna play a lot more press man (coverage),” cornerbacks coach Allen Brown said. “I take a ton of pride in playing press and the opportunities that it gives you to take away some of the timing, especially with Coach Bateman’s scheme, his aggressive style. It’s a really lonely feeling when somebody that runs a 4.3 (40-yard dash) is stepping on your toes full speed as you’re going the other way.
“It’s really lonely, especially when you’re doing it the whole game. So we’re going to go get up at the line of scrimmage, get in guys’ faces, make them go left and right, east and west, as opposed to going vertical and stepping on our toes.”
Count Nichols among the group that thinks the change in style could unlock a new level of performance for the cornerbacks.
“As the weeks go by, just the confidence rises,” he said. “Getting in the playbook, getting those reps under your belt, it helps build confidence, because doing something that you’re not really used to, or doing something that you haven’t done before, is uncomfortable at first.
“…For me, I just feel like my confidence is rising. And everyone in the room … is just showing more confidence and just playing faster.”
Questions remain.
Nichols should be the star of the group, if he can stay healthy. The staff is high on the potential of Sykes to make an instant impact, but he faces a difficult jump in competition after playing at the FCS level. Addison and Grayton should factor in the rotation, and Demarcus Gardner was a surprise breakout in spring practice after playing in three games as a freshman.
Even in the best-case scenario, fans should be prepared for some ugly mistakes, though.
“If you play man coverage every snap, you’re bound to give up an explosive (play),” Stein said. “Just is a fact. So, being able to play different variations of coverage in the back end to … give them vision on the quarterback, rather than just have their back to the quarterback, I think that helps those guys out.
“Up to this point, those guys have competed really well, and yeah, I’m excited about that group too.”