Why Jager Burton believes his second shot at center will succeed for UK football
Two years ago, when Kentucky tried to move Jager Burton from offensive guard to center, the position shift lasted all of three games.
By the fourth contest of the 2023 UK season, a combination of errant snaps and other inconsistencies in his play had combined to send Burton back to the guard position.
Given that history, it seemed a surprise when, at the conclusion of Kentucky’s 2025 spring practice, it became apparent that Burton would again enter the Wildcats’ preseason camp as the Cats’ first-string center.
“Nobody likes to fail at something. I felt like I failed (at the first transition to center),” Burton, a former star at Lexington’s Frederick Douglass High School, said Friday at UK football’s annual media day.
A 6-foot-4, 323-pound redshirt senior, Burton has made 34 career starts for Kentucky — 31 at offensive guard, three at center.
Reviews from Burton’s initial stint snapping the ball in games for UK were less than glowing. After he made his first start in UK’s 44-14 win over Ball State in the 2023 season opener, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops noted that Burton did “a lot of good — and some things that just can’t happen.”
Two games later, in a 35-3 UK win over Akron, Burton had two errant snaps that cost Kentucky a negative 33 yards of field position. He also was flagged for two costly penalties, including a holding call that negated what would have been a 64-yard UK touchdown pass.
By the next week, at Vanderbilt, Kentucky had moved Burton back to right guard with Eli Cox vacating that position to play center.
Nevertheless, Burton says one reason he believes he can succeed at center this fall is the lessons he learned the hard way in 2023.
“The difference is, I just have a lot more confidence in myself to be able to do it,” Burton said. “And I feel the confidence from the coaches, too.”
The last John Schlarman recruit
When Kentucky recruiters were able to keep Burton at home as part of the class of 2021, it was considered a recruiting coup for UK.
Scholarship offers from traditional pigskin titans Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee and Texas were among the 20 power conference offers Burton received.
Burton was initially recruited for Kentucky by then-offensive line coach John Schlarman. When Burton takes the field for the Wildcats this fall, he will presumably be the final player primarily recruited by Schlarman — who died from cancer during the 2020 season at age 45 — to play for UK.
After offensive line struggles were assigned ample blame for the 4-8 season that snapped Kentucky’s eight-year bowl streak in 2024, the Wildcats went heavily to the transfer portal to rebuild “the Big Blue Wall.”
It was initially assumed that Evan Wibberley, a transfer from Western Kentucky, would be UK’s No. 1 center in 2025. However, Burton says the Kentucky coaches approached him “right before spring ball” with the idea of him giving center another shot.
“I wanted to do it again, just because I wanted to get the bad taste from last time out of my mouth,” Burton says.
Center is the most complex position on the offensive line. Normally, it is the center who makes the line calls that set blocking assignments in response to an opponent’s defensive alignment. Then for teams that run from the pistol or shotgun formations, it falls on the center to accurately snap the ball to the quarterback — and do it right with repetitivity.
After all that, the center still has to block, too.
In Burton’s first go around as Kentucky’s center, inaccurate snaps when UK was in the pistol formation were too frequent.
This time around, Stoops says Burton is working with ardor to become a reliable snapper. From his coaching office that overlooks the UK practice fields, Stoops says he often sees Burton toiling on his own after practices while working on snapping the ball.
“He’s busting his butt,” Stoops said. “Forty minutes (after practice), he’s out there snapping and working on things.”
If Burton can show in his final college season that he has mastered a second position along the offensive line, he hopes it might catch the eye of NFL scouts. Because of small roster sizes (relative to college teams), NFL franchises prioritize offensive linemen who can play multiple positions.
“For his future, being able to play both (guard and center) is super important for him,” Stoops says.
Ultimately, Burton being given another crack at playing the position he could not hold in 2023 is supplying him with the chance to show everyone — himself included — that he can play center at a winning level in FBS football.
The struggles of two years ago have “kind of driven me to do absolutely everything I can now to be the best center I can be,” Jager Burton says.
