Kentucky's play-calling will be 'group effort' in Music City Bowl

For the second time in three years, Kentucky will have an interim offensive coordinator situation in the bowl game. Only this time, there is not a clear person to take the play-calling role in Lexington.

It appears clear that Mark Stoops has no plans to make Eddie Gran an on-field coach for the bowl prep. Meanwhile, the Wildcats have holes at quarterback and running back following the dismissals of Rich Scangarello and John Settle. That leaves a void, but Kentucky seems committed to a committee approach.

“You got Woody out there — Scott Woodward. You’ve got Vince [Marrow] who’s done it before,” Stoops said. “Will be a big part of the leadership of that. But Woody has been a quarterback, been a receiver guy so he’ll help a lot.”

Marrow called the plays in Kentucky’s Gator Bowl win over NC State when the offense rushed for 288 yards against NC State. Woodward was a quality control coach at Pittsburgh in 2020 before becoming Kentucky’s wide receivers coach in 2021. The former UMass coach was brought to Lexington by former teammate Liam Coen. Stoops also brought up quality control assistants Josh Estes-Waugh and Mark Perry who will both also help with Kentucky’s play-calling think tank.

So we’re not entirely sure how the offensive operation will work on New Year’s Eve when Kentucky’s offense faces Iowa’s top-five defense.

“I don’t want to comment on that just yet,” Stoops told reporters. “We’ll work through that. It’ll be a group effort.”

Kentucky is close to a running backs coach hire

During his Monday meeting with the media, Mark Stoops wanted to make it clear that the offensive coordinator search was still ongoing and not close to a conclusion with multiple candidates involved. However, that was not the same message received when Kentucky’s head coach discussed the running backs coach opening.

Things appear to be close to done on that end, and the new hire will have a background in the third phase.

“I have a person in mind that I’m going to hire that’ll coach running backs and special teams,” Stoops said.

We should recognize that if this current coach is in the NFL it is highly likely that the hire won’t be made official until the regular season ends on Jan. 8. We could have to play the waiting game if Stoops sticks with his recent hiring track record of adding coaches with NFL experience to the staff at Kentucky. Something to keep in mind if this hire is not made shortly after National Signing Day on Dec. 21.

The head coach did dive into some of the traits he’ll be looking for that new coach to check. A strong personality will be needed as Kentucky looks to bolster its recruiting operation.

“A dynamic person,” Stoops said about what he’s looking for in the job search. “A person that can handle the room and coach his position. Once again, just like I talk about players, that talent level has to be there. That’s first and foremost. But then I think personality matters. Bring something else to it. Are you a dynamic recruiter? Do you bring something in special teams? There’s several things that you could factor into it.

Waiting is often the hardest part. Some patience will be required as Kentucky makes staff changes on offense.