The most important hire Mark Stoops has made this offseason might not be who you think
How Rich Scangarello fares in continuing the transformation of the Kentucky offense that Liam Coen began last year will be one of the dominant narratives of the Wildcats’ 2022 football season.
Yet the fate of Scangarello’s first season as UK offensive coordinator might rest on how effective another of Mark Stoops’ offseason coaching hires proves to be.
When Zach Yenser first came onto Stoops’ radar in the search for a new Wildcats offensive line coach, even the Cats’ coach was taken aback by how perfect his background seemed for what Kentucky needed.
The odds seemed long that UK could find a qualified offensive line coach who was both:
1.) well-schooled in the Kyle Shanahan/Sean McVay offensive philosophy that Coen brought to Lexington last year;
2.) the possessor of a viable connection to John Schlarman, the late, beloved ex-UK line coach who built “The Big Blue Wall” before his death from cancer in 2020 at age 45.
“It was like, ‘This is too good to be true,’” Stoops said last week. “(Yenser’s) knowledge of this (offensive) system is through the roof. … Then the fact that he was tied to Kentucky, tied to John, it was an absolute no-brainer.”
I’ve come to think that evaluating coaching hires accurately on the front end is more challenging than abstract algebra. So take this for what it’s worth, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a coaching hire in which the man seems more suited for the mission than Yenser as Kentucky offensive line coach.
Off his three years on Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers staff as assistant offensive line coach, Yenser was going to be an ideal fit had Coen, with his Los Angeles Rams ties, stayed for a second season as UK OC. While not identical, the offensive systems used by the 49ers and Rams spring from the same philosophic roots.
When Coen was called back to L.A. by McVay to be the Rams’ offensive coordinator after Los Angeles won the Super Bowl, Yenser became even more valuable to Kentucky once Stoops settled on 49ers quarterbacks coach Scangarello as the Cats’ new playcaller.
Had Yenser not already been in Lexington, “it would have been much harder to take the (UK) job,” Scangarello said last week. “Not that I don’t feel great about the whole situation. … But to be able to have someone who knows where you are coming from and (will) be on the same page (in putting) a plan together to help the players get up to pace with how we want it to look, that is a big deal from my perspective to help the transition.”
A product of Fort Mitchell in Kenton County who spent his teen years in Georgia after his family moved when his father changed jobs, Yenser is coming to Kentucky at a time when “The Big Blue Wall” needs some reconstruction work.
After going 10-3 and winning the VRBO Citrus Bowl last season, the Wildcats are losing three offensive line starters in center Luke Fortner and tackles Darian Kinnard and Dare Rosenthal. All three could hear their names called in the 2022 NFL Draft.
Successfully rebuilding is vital because offensive line play — physical, tough, a little nasty — has been the foundation upon which Kentucky’s football ascendance has been built.
It is not a coincidence that the first of UK’s six straight bowls came in the same season, 2016, in which Schlarman presided over his first really good offensive line.
Since that year, the Kentucky offensive line culture has flourished. UK has been a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award — given to the best offensive line in the country — four times and was a finalist last season.
Kentucky has had two offensive linemen (Kinnard in 2021 and Bunchy Stallings in 2018) named AP First-Team All-America. The Wildcats have had three offensive linemen (George Asafo-Adjai in 2019; Logan Stenberg in 2020; Landon Young in 2021) chosen in the NFL Draft — and might double that number this year.
With last season’s Kentucky offensive line coach, Eric Wolford, leaving for Alabama after only one season, it is up to Yenser to find the means to keep “The Big Blue Wall” standing strong.
A former Troy University center, Yenser spent his first season as a college coach at his alma mater in 2007 as a graduate assistant working under Schlarman.
As an apprentice coach, Yenser made note of how Schlarman employed different motivational methods tailored individually to each player. “He treated everybody a little different,” Yenser said.
Having heard stories that, because of the time demands of the job, one could not be both a successful college football coach and a good husband and father, Yenser said he saw the opposite example proven by Schlarman.
“The other thing, (Schlarman) was just a doggone good football coach,” Yenser said.
On Tuesday, as he met with local reporters, Yenser’s voice cracked when he talked about the responsibility he feels to uphold the offensive line standards Schlarman created at Kentucky.
“There is a little bit extra for me (in working at UK),” he said. “I want to do a good job for John. I want to do a good job for his family, and just carry on that tradition.”
