Kentucky Football Changing Tone to Transfer Portal Player Leadership

In recent years, there has been a common theme among early conversations with transfer portal arrivals at the Joe Craft Football Training Facility. Even though many expected Wan’Dale Robinson or Ray Davis to be the best players for the Kentucky football program, they were hesitant to set the tone on day one as the leaders of the team. Will Levis didn’t even become QB1 until halfway through fall camp.

There was a certain orientation the new guys had to go through to be able to assert themselves amongst their peers. Kentucky had an established culture. The mercenaries could not just come in and immediately shake things up.

Ahead of the 2025 season, that’s exactly what this Kentucky football program needs.

Stepping On Toes is Needed

Following a 4-8 campaign, Mark Stoops welcomed 31 new players to the roster for the spring semester, most of which are players from the transfer portal. Rather than relying on former blue chip recruits from Power Five programs, Kentucky prioritized experienced production from the Group of Five ranks.

“I brought in guys that are very mature, right? I don’t think anybody in this group is worried about stepping on anybody’s toes,” Mark Stoops said last week. “I think when you have some alphas in the room — again, I don’t mean to put down anything or anybody in the past — it’s like the way things are right now, you are kind of starting fresh. When the players come back in January, you are starting from ground zero.

“I need the leaders to lead. We have guys with great experience. I feel very good about that. I didn’t do a good enough job of teaching and bringing out the leadership that I needed to a year ago. We are not going to miss in that area.”

It’s hard to step on another player’s toes when there aren’t many returning. That’s especially the case on the offensive side of the ball, where there might be only a handful of players who actually saw snaps last fall. Many of the new guys have been starters for two or three years. That’s the case for former Washington State defensive lineman David Gusta.

“I think with it being my last year of college, I’m not really too worried about stepping on people’s toes. I’m not really too worried about hurting feelings. I’m gonna come in and if I don’t like something, I’m going to vocalize it,” Gusta told KSR.

“You guys already know, there was a lack of culture here. It was a little too lax and I felt that. But everybody here is doing a great job of just making it a little more tight and not so loose, nonchalant.”

We're working 😼 pic.twitter.com/d3gY8s1P8u

— Kentucky Football (@UKFootball) March 1, 2025

Kentucky Defines Expectations Early

During the portal recruitment process, it was made very clear to the players what they were walking into. That means reshaping the culture and leadership of the program. Prior to the first team workouts, Mark Stoops crafted a plan to define the expectations for the team, new guys and old.

“We set that precedent right from the beginning,” said Stoops. “We’ve worked extremely hard and we have to intentionally develop them, give them the tools and define exactly, very clearly what we expect of them. We’re doing that. We’re working extremely hard in that area, all of us… There is so much we needed to look at as a staff and then define what we’re looking for to the players, to ourselves, to everything.”

Kentucky got older by bringing in a bunch of new guys. The task is challenging. They must reset a culture that took years to build in one offseason. There’s no time to waste worrying about stepping on another’s toes.