Kentucky is still going to Run The Damn Ball

Devin Leary sent shockwaves across the SEC when he announced his commitment to Kentucky. The proven quarterback is teaming up with a wide receiver room that some people are saying is the deepest and most talented ever fielded in Lexington. Surely Liam Coen is going to fire up those Air Raid sirens and throw the ball all over the yard, right? Well, not exactly.

Mark Stoops brought a message to SEC Media Days. Kentucky is getting back to playing physical, blue collar football. You can’t really do that by wearing out Leary’s arm every Saturday.

So what’s it going to be? Will Kentucky still move the ball three yards in a cloud of dust, or drop bombs deep downfield through air? Why not both? Mark Stoops wants to have his cake and eat it too.

“We absolutely want to have that balance,” the Kentucky head coach told KSR at SEC Media Days. “When I hired Liam two years ago, I think you saw that coming.”

In January of 2021 the line Kentucky used was “marrying the run and the pass.” Sean McVay’s system heavily emphasized play-action pass, using the run to setup the pass. Even though Benny Snell and Chris Rodriguez aren’t walking through that door, Kentucky is still going to run the ball to open up passing lanes for Devin Leary.

“For us to have success throwing the ball, we have to be who we are, and that’s a physical tough team that has balance,” said Stoops.

Kentucky is not abandoning its physical identity in the run game. They’re simply going to adapt with the times by adjusting to the strengths of the offense’s personnel. It’s important for Mark Stoops, so important that this was one of the only verbatim quotes Stoops prepared for in his opening statement in the Grand Ballroom at SEC Media Days:

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”