Kentucky labeled as surprise team in college football

Kentucky massively disappointed expectations on the football field last season, thanks to their offense for the most part. But in 2023, On3’s Andy Staples sees a path to a big leap.

He recently joined Barstool’s Big Cat and PFT Commentator on their massively successful podcast Pardon My Take to hash out some of the biggest storylines in college football on the eve of the season. As part of their discussion, Big Cat asked Andy for one surprise team and one letdown team.

His surprise team came from the Bluegrass State.

“I think people in the SEC are talking about this. I don’t know about nationally, but Kentucky seems to have fixed a lot of the things that caused problems last year, where the offense just didn’t quite work,” said Staples, noting the switch back to Liam Coen at offensive coordinator is a key move.

“They had lost Liam Coen to the Rams, he comes back as the OC. This is the same guy that that had Will Levis the first year Levis was at Kentucky.”

That year, the 2021 season, Kentucky started out 6-0 with wins over Florida and LSU and proceeded to finish 10-3 with a Citrus Bowl victory over Iowa — among the best years in decades for the program.

“So they’ve got Devin Leary now,” Staples continued, “who was the NC State quarterback for a long time and actually went into last season as as their — you know, NC State was mounting a Heisman campaign for him. He was coming off a really good 2021, but he had a shoulder injury (in 2022) and had to have surgery.”

With Leary, a trio of dynamic receivers, plus a revamped offensive line, Kentucky ought to be much improved on offense.

“So they could be quite a bit better. They will they have some very good young receivers in Dane Key and Barion Brown. Hopefully they’re better on the offensive line. That will be a a big one for them, because they just have gone kind of downhill in that department. But they’ve recruited well over the years, so you think it’ll come back around.”

Andy Staples’ warning to the SEC East: watch out for the Wildcats.

“So that’s one that… if you’re Tennessee, if you’re Florida, if you’re South Carolina, you’re worried about them right being considerably better than they were last year, right.”