'We have to be gritty': New Kentucky assistant coach L'Damian Washington is looking for right fits at wide receiver

The Kentucky football program is undergoing a massive roster overhaul. There have been 19 scholarship players leave the program since the end of the regular season and four played wide receiver. The program was also hit with a surprise when wide receivers coach Daikiel Shorts Jr. left for Nebraska right before the early signing period at the beginning of the mont. That forced Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops to make seventh wide receivers coach hire in 12 years.

There is a lot of change going on in Lexington.

South Florida wide receivers coach L’Damian Washington was officially announced as the new wide receivers coach on Tuesday. The 33-year-old is reuniting with Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan after each worked at Missouri during the 2020 season. The entire offensive staff at the Joe Craft Football Training Facility is working on flipping the roster in the transfer portal after a highly disappointing 2024 campaign. Kentucky is currently hosting Incarnate Word quarterback Zach Calzada on a visit, but also needs to address the wide receiver position. The expectation is that UK will add multiple wideout transfers. What will Washington be looking for?

Fit and grit.

“Fit. What does this receiver room need? Right now, we need to bring in hard, good working kids that have a mentality that no matter what they gonna come and put their head down and go to work,” Washington told the media on Wednesday afternoon. “We have to be blue collar. We have to be gritty.”

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Stoops has gone on record multiple times to say that Kentucky wants to be a blue collar program. The Wildcats are entering an offseason where they must reset the culture after things got away from the program during the season in a big way this past fall. L’Damian Washington will attempt to do his part to get Kentucky back to its established standard. That means doing the dirty work.

“Usually receivers are the swag and all this. Cool. That’s part of it, but no, that’s not No. 1, 2, or 3 for me. You have to know that we’re going to do the dirty work and bring a blue collar approach,” Washington said. “That’s who I am. We’re going to be mentally tougher than anybody else.”

Execution was an issue for Kentucky last year. This is a program that must develop better leadership. All of that starts from the top down. L’Damian Washington will make sure his group will do whatever it takes for the team to win games.

“We’re going to do whatever Bush asks us to do to go win ball games,” explained Washington. “That’s what we’re gonna have to do for this university to be successful.”