The strength of Kentucky football’s 2020 offense should again be up front
Last week, our analytics-based friends from Cincinnati posted an interesting stat on Twitter:
Pro Football Focus listed its highest-graded returning SEC offensive tackles:
- 1-Darian Kinnard, Kentucky — 89.2
- 2-Landon Young, Kentucky — 78.3
- 3-Carson Green, Texas A&M — 76.3
The tweet highlights a perhaps overlooked but important fact about the 2020 Kentucky football team. Despite the loss of Logan Stenberg, a fourth-round NFL Draft pick who just signed his contract with the Detroit Lions, Kentucky’s offensive line should be pretty good again next season.
It was very good last season. As Lynn Bowden rushed for 1,468 yards, Kentucky was a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award for the nation’s best offensive line. National champion LSU won the award. Considering the Cats moved a wide receiver to quarterback five games into the season, both offensive coordinator Eddie Gran and offensive line coach John Schlarman did a remarkable job.
Only Stenberg and key backup Mason Wolfe are gone from last year. Four starters return, including Young and Kinnard. Center Drake Jackson, the linchpin of the line, also returns for his senior season. Luke Fortner, who started all 13 games at right guard, is also back.
Left guard will be an open competition once (if?) training camp arrives. Surely the UK staff hoped to have matters at that position sorted out by the end of spring practice. But as well all know, spring practice ended prematurely because of the coronavirus pandemic. For UK, that would be one position that would benefit from a longer-than-normal fall camp.
Kenneth Horsey could get first crack. He has an inspiring story, returning after open heart surgery a few months after arriving on campus.
Austin Dotson is in the mix and UK could move Quinton Wilson to guard if need be. Dotson played in UK’s final six games. Horsey played in three of the last four.
Nassir Watkins is a more than capable backup who has played in 24 games during his career. Wilson should be Jackson’s backup at center.
Here’s a list of the offensive linemen on the current Kentucky roster:
Offensive tackle
- Landon Young, Sr.
- Darian Kinnard, Jr.
- Nassir Watkins, Jr.
- Austin Dotson, Jr.
- Matthew Harper, Jr.
- Nick Lewis, R-So.
- Jeremy Flax, So.
- Jake Pope, R-Fr.
- John Young, Fr.
- Deondre Buford, Fr.
- Joshua Jones, Fr.
Offensive guard
- Luke Fortner, Sr.
- Kenneth Horsey, R-So.
- Ryan Bryant, So.
- Eli Cox, R-Fr.
- R.J. Adams, Fr
Center
- Drake Jackson, Sr
- Tyler Couch, Jr.
- Quintin Wilson, R-So.
- Sawyer Carter, So.
Back to Kinnard and Young. If Kinnard chooses to come out after his junior season, there is an excellent chance that Kentucky could have two offensive linemen taken in the 2021 NFL Draft.
The last time that happened? That would be 1993 when UK offensive guard Todd Perry was taken in the fourth round (97th overall) by the Chicago Bears and offensive tackle Chuck Bradley was drafted in the sixth round (158th overall) by the old Houston Oilers. Perry went on to play 11 years with the Bears and Miami Dolphins. Bradley played one season with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Make sure you check out Josh Moore’s story on Darian Kinnard and his mother, a nurse in Lexington, and the COVID-19 crisis.
Follow Josh on Twitter for all your Kentucky football news.
To the links:
▪ Click here for a sortable 2020 Kentucky football roster in a Google spreadsheet.
▪ In our “We Meet Again” series, Jerry Tipton writes on Jarrod Polson, who recently became a new father.
▪ A Kentucky basketball recruiting target has NBA players to guide his game this summer, writes Ben Roberts of the Herald-Leader. ”There have been no live recruiting periods or opportunities for high-level team competition so far this spring. It has been an eventful time for Skyy Clark nonetheless.”
▪ New UK basketball guard Davion Mintz is officially a college graduate. Creighton tweeted congratulations to the former Blue Jay on Saturday. He will play his graduate transfer season for the Wildcats in 2020-21.
▪ Phyllis George was an unappreciated pioneer, writes Cindy Boren of the Washington Post. “Even if she didn’t break down game tape, she did something more important for the profession and for what sports would become: She put a face on players and showed that entertainment was a big part of athleticism. She coaxed a revealing personal nugget from Roger Staubach, getting the Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer to say he enjoyed sex as much as rival Joe Namath, ‘only I do it with one girl.’”
▪ If you missed it, we are re-publishing the stories from Kentucky football’s 10 bowl victories. First up is UK’s win in the Great Lakes Bowl.
▪ This follows our earlier series in which we re-published the game stories from Kentucky basketball’s eight national championships.
▪ Maryland quarterback Tyrell Pigrome is transferring to Western Kentucky. Pigrome was the Terps’ backup quarterback last year. The graduate transfer thew for 1,777 yards with nine touchdowns and 10 interceptions during his four seasons at College Park.
▪ Louisville picked up a commitment from defensive lineman Ashton Gillotte. He’s the second DL to recently commit to the Cards, who received a commitment from Ryheem Craig last week. Gillotte is 6-foot-4, 220 pounds out of Florida. Craig is 6-3, 212 pounds out of Taylorsville, N.C.
▪ Without fans, some college football games won’t make financial sense, writes Billy With of the New York Times. He examines the Alabama-USC game scheduled for Sept. 5. “Now, as it increasingly appears that the college football season will be played with restrictions — if it is played at all — college administrators and event promoters are busy wondering how games like Alabama-USC pencil out if crowds are prohibited or limited.”
▪ Follow me on Twitter. Thanks for reading.
This story was originally published May 18, 2020 at 7:43 AM.
