What you might have missed during this Kentucky football offseason

The Kentucky football program ended a highly disappointing 2024 campaign on Thanksgiving Saturday with a blowout loss to Louisville. Since then we have seen a high school recruiting cycle come to a close, two transfer portal windows completed, the NFL Draft, and spring practice. But some of you might not have been completely locked in on what is going on with the program after a thrilling season in Mark Pope’s debut for Kentucky basketball.

KSR is here with a cheat sheet to get you up to speed as summer rolls in.

There are three major holidays throughout the summer and the first one is just a week away. Memorial Day often serves as the beginning of talking once preview magazines hit newsstands shortly after the first long weekend of the summer. High school recruiting will then heat up around the Fourth of July and the season will officially begin on Labor Day weekend. Now is the time on the calendar where people start to really dig in and get into football season prep with the NBA playoffs beginning to enter their final stages and the MLB season about to enter the dog days of summer.

What is going on with Kentucky? Let’s dive in.

1.) Mark Stoops is motivated

Mark Stoops made a pivot last season as soon as he was asked about the speculation of his potential retirement. From that moment on, the head coach shared that he was excited to get into roster-building this offseason and to reset the roster. Stoops then went on to share how motivated he was on multiple occasions.

“Everybody wants to replace me right now, but I’m not going anywhere,” Stoops told Tom Leach after the loss to Louisville. “My butt is going to work tomorrow, and I’m going to try and be motivated as hell to get this thing fixed and get better.”

Nearly four months later, Stoops doubled-down.

“You could take this or leave it, but I’ve never been as motivated as I am right now. If you know anything about me, I do not like an ass kicking,” Stoops told KSR. “We didn’t play to our best last year and I can guarantee you since that season was over, when we lost on Saturday against Louisville, our butts were in that office on Sunday and have not stopped since.”

Since that moment, the Big Blue Nation has had a lot of meme fun with “Motivated Mark Stoops”. Those active on the artist formerly known as Twitter have surely seen the jokes. There will likely even be t-shirts made this fall.

One way or another, this will be a part of this football season. Stoops will be given a chance to prove doubters wrong and it will remain a thing. Or the season could go poorly and the memes will continue.

Don’t expect the “Motivated Mark Stoops” movement to go away.

2.) Kentucky lost 29 scholarship players to the transfer portal

Kentucky needed a roster flip after the 2024 season. That meant some potential heavy roster attrition. We saw that play out in December and against in April when the portal re-opened.

UK lost nearly 30 players to college football free agency. Khamari Anderson (Arizona State), Barion Brown (LSU), Jordan Dingle (South Carolina), Dane Key (Nebraska), and Keeshawn Silver (USC) will each have big roles on teams with College Football Playoff expectations.

Most of the personnel losses were players on the second or third unit, but the Cats did lose multiple starters to other power conference programs.

3.) Kentucky added 24 scholarship transfers to the roster

The most transfer losses quickly turned into the biggest transfer class under Mark Stoops. Kentucky’s final number ended at 24 additions with 17 joining the program in the winter and seven signing on during the spring. Many will be expected to start.

Tailback, wide receiver, tight end, offensive line, defensive line, and EDGE each added multiple transfers to their position rooms this offseason. Kentucky again found a new starting quarterback (Zach Calzada) via college football free agency. There could be double-digit first-year transfer starters on the field in the starting lineup when UK faces Toledo in Week 1.

But Kentucky also used the portal to address roster depth.

The spring was filled with additions to help backfill position rooms that saw heavy attrition rates. UK used the portal to find starters and supplement the entire roster. That means a ton of new faces. Adding in the high school signees, UK will have 45 new scholarship players on the roster this season.

4.) Kentucky is off to a very, very slow high school recruiting start

Official visit season is right around the corner. One week from Friday, UK is expected to host their first of four big recruiting weekends in June. The Wildcats are set to enter that period with only one commit in the 2026 high school class.

Missouri and Wake Forest are the only other power conference schools with just one commitment. Every school in the Big Ten has at least four commitments. The Wildcats are behind.

Paducah (Ky.) Tilghman tackle Jarvis Strickland was a very nice recruiting win, but the Cats need a lot more. There is some serious work to get done over the summer. The early slow start indicates that this could very well be a small high school class and that could mean another high-volume portal class in the winter.

5.) The schedule is brutal

Kentucky did not win a home game against a power conference foe in 2024. The Wildcats are just 2-11 in SEC home games since beating LSU in 2021. Those ugly streaks might just continue in 2025.

UK is projected home dog in all four SEC contests. Three of those games could include a double-digit spread. The road slate include a true toss-up game against Vanderbilt, but UK is still at least a touchdown dog against both South Carolina and Louisville.

The schedule gave Kentucky four top-10 foes last season plus games against Louisville and South Carolina squads that combined to win 18 games. Something similar could occur this year.

That could lower the ceiling for this Kentucky team. The win total currently sits at 4.5.

6.) Expectations are rising for the rebuild offensive line

Many felt that last year’s problems were the result of numerous factors coming together, but the biggest that was the offensive line play. Kentucky simply had some major issues at tackle and dealt with some injuries along with a lack of proven depth. That officially put an offense with a first-time starting quarterback and new play-caller in many no-win situations.

The program knew it had to fix the offensive line in the portal this offseason. Kentucky spent resources to make it happen.

The Wildcats landed Joshua Braun (Arkansas), Shiyazh Pete (New Mexico State), and Alex Wollschlaeger (Bowling Green) to each fill starting positions. Evan Wibberley (WKU) gives the unit a backup center with experience after Jager Burton made another position switch. Former Florida transfer Jalen Farmer returns at right guard where he had a positive first year as a starter in 2024. Malachi Wood is back and gives the unit an experienced tackle with terrific size.

The pieces are in place. Now Kentucky needs to prove that these new additions can play.

All expectations are for this offense to remain a run-first attack with the play-action pass game mixed in to help create explosive plays. UK double-dipped at tailback in the transfer portal by adding Dante Dowdell (Nebraska) and Seth McGowan (New Mexico State) to help give this ground attack more bite but it all starts with the line.

Kentucky has built this offensive roster with a clear focus on the offensive line first. The Cats need this group to be one of the most improved positional units in the SEC. They are banking on that happening so the team can play the ball control style that won this program a lot of game from 2016-21.

The program seems to feel good about where the offensive line sits entering the year after spending big money on the position this offseason. Kentucky needs the unit to be good or this season could get off the rails fast.

Many in the Big Blue Nation just wanted the program to fix the offensive line in the offseason by using the portal. Kentucky attempted to do that. Soon we will find out if that plan can be executed. The buzz is positive so far.