Demie Sumo-Karngbaye says Bush Hamdan's offense is a 'dream come true'

Part of the intrigue for Demie Sumo-Karngbaye transferring to Kentucky from North Carolina State last offseason was to team up with his former quarterback Devin Leary in Lexington. The two had found chemistry together as a receiving threat out of the backfield beyond typical ball-carrying duties with the Wolfpack, rushing for 305 yards and three scores while adding 148 yards and a touchdown through the air in 2022.

Hoping to break through as a junior trading out red for blue, the Willingboro, NJ native actually saw significant dips in production, his rushing and receiving yardage cut by over half. 55 carries down to 20, 305 yards down to 139 while adding just 69 yards in the passing game. Sure, Ray Davis exploding as a superstar limited his opportunities, but the touches just weren’t there elsewhere splitting things up with Ramon Jefferson and JuTahn McClain.

With the running back room opening up in 2024 — he’s one of two upperclassmen next to Chip Trayanum — Sumo-Karngbaye is expecting change as a senior. And he believes playing for first-year offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan will be a big reason for that.

“Man, it’s almost a dream come true, you know? With my versatility, it just fits so well,” he said Monday. “The player that I am, I’m not a one-trick pony, you know what I’m saying? I don’t really get frustrated with being a starting guy or being the second guy, I just like to play my role or whatever you want to call it.”

The passing game just never took off as hoped or planned a season ago while Davis became a must-use threat both on the ground and through the air — he combined for 1,452 offensive yards and 21 touchdowns on 232 touches. Then he joined a trio of backs with Jefferson and McClain to earn no fewer than 20 rushes but no more than 28, no one emerging as the go-to backup as Kentucky desperately searched for an identity in Liam Coen’s second stint in Lexington.

Sumo-Karngbaye slipped through the cracks and he now wants to make the most of his do-over this time around. Spreading the love a bit more will help that under Hamdan.

“That’s the most important part, just getting everybody involved,” he said. “Last year, it was kind of hard to do that. This year, we’re putting an emphasis on that, getting more guys involved in the game.”

Play count also limited his reps, the Cats struggling with rhythm on a snap-by-snap basis. It’s why Mark Stoops has beaten the tempo talking point to a point to open camp, refusing to deal with delay of game penalties and panicked snaps with the play clock ticking down moving forward.

The more total snaps, the more potential reps for guys like Sumo-Karngbaye.

“Last year, we were a huddle offense. This year, we’re tempoing things up,” he added. “Conditioning this summer has been a little brutal, but the sun and the weather, that’s something that we’ve got to be used to. We’re getting used to it, a lot of guys are used to it already. There are some guys from up north who are used to the cold.

“But the tempo, we’re pretty used to it now coming from the offseason and the spring, getting used to the new OC’s gameplan.”

Now the opportunities are coming, Saturday marking the first live scrimmage of fall camp. It felt good for Sumo-Karngbaye to get those pads popping and show folks in attendance what he’s capable of as a senior.

“I’ve been waiting for that, man. We’ve been thudding up, that’s just normal,” he said. “But I haven’t felt the ground in a long time until that scrimmage, so that was definitely exciting for me personally. I really like to be physical, that’s another part of my game that I really like.

“So Saturday, that was a really fun and exciting moment for me. I just wanted to see what I could do myself.”

Things are going well in practice. Now it’s time to see how that translates to live game reps. They’re certainly there for the taking.