Tight Ends, Running Backs to Play Important Role in Kentucky Passing Game

It’s August, which means it’s time for us to answer a very important question Kentucky football fans are asking everywhere: “Is this the year they finally throw the ball to the tight ends?” That question will get answered, right after the running backs tell you they will be catching more passes this fall.

You’ve heard it before. Why should this year finally be the year the running backs and tight ends are more involved in the passing game?

Kentucky has a Scholarship Crunch at Wide Receiver

Tayvion Robinson is the only Kentuky wide receiver that is not a freshman or a sophomore. If you include Boyle County pass-catcher Cole Lanter among the scholarship wide receivers, there are only nine on the roster. The Wildcats’ success on the recruiting trail led to a mass exodus via the portal, straining depth at wide receiver.

“From a scholarship receiver number, (we’re) not on the higher end. Well, how do we combat some of that? By putting big skill players in space,” Liam Coen said Tuesday.

“Ultimately, it’s how do you try to get some matchups and situations that are favorable for us with some big, good, smart, skill players to put them in space? Really, that’s what we’re trying to do with some of those guys that are playing a little bit out of their position.”

Conversely, the Kentucky running back and tight end room is a solid four-deep, but could rotate as many as six players at each position. A wise man once said, “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”

“Y’all probably heard me say several years, ‘We got good tight ends. This is a good tight end room.’ We did. But this is the best room I’ve had since I’ve been here 11 years, top to bottom,” Vince Marrow shared. “There’s serious competition in there and you cannot take a day off practice.”

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Versatile Playmakers at Running Back, Tight End

In order to throw the ball more to the tight ends and running backs, they need to be able to catch the football. Ray Davis is thought of as a power runner between the tackles, but he’s displayed some eye-opening athleticism in space so far this preseason. JuTahn McClain was a pass-catching option in Liam Coen 1.0, hauling in a 25-yard touchdown reception against LSU during just his second appearance in the 2021 season. The biggest wild card is a newcomer, Demie Sumo-Karngbaye. He is being asked to wear a lot of different hats, something that isn’t new to the NC State transfer.

“Even in high school I played more than one position,” he told KSR. “I played on both sides of the ball. On offense I played receiver and running back, some times I went out at quarterback. I just love playing many positions, and I’m going to be on special teams this year too.”

DSK is spending about as much time lined up at wide receiver as he is running back. He’s only been a part of a handful of practices, but he feels right at home catching passes from Devin Leary, another New Jersey native that started his career at NC State. Liam Coen can see the connection on the field between the two.

“I’m glad that they do have a rapport that they do have chemistry already,” said Coen. “They have a friendship. It helps each other. When you’re a new kid coming into a program in this world we’re living in, when you come in with a teammate — two great kids that just want to help and play good football — it’s nice when you have somebody to kind of lean on and be with throughout that process.”

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Personnel Mismatches are Important Part of Early Install

Why do I believe this year is the year the tight ends and running backs will get the ball more in the passing game? Because they’re doing just that during the first week of practice. Splitting Izayah Cummings out wide to receiver isn’t just a wrinkle in a sub-package put in place before a road trip to Columbia. He did it in 2021 and he’s doing it during the early portions of the offensive playbook’s installation.

“In this offense now, he can be another receiver lined up; that’s 12 personnel or 13 personnel with three tight ends,” Marrow said of the UK tight end. “He’s showing what he can do and man, I’m very happy for him. I’m more happy for him more than anybody, because he stayed in there. It made him more hungry and now he’s starting to see the fruits of his labor so far in camp.”

The offseason growth of Cummings and the addition of DSK give Liam Coen two wild cards. The Kentucky offense can be in a big set of 22 personnel (two tight ends, two running backs). When the defense responds by going big, Coen can keep that group on the field, run tempo, then spread out DSK and Cummings. What was once a big set is now spread wide with four receivers who are being defended by linebackers. That’s the most basic mismatch Liam Coen can create with his versatile tight ends and running backs this fall.

“Liam’s good and creative. Demie has been very versatile, just good in a lot of different ways and can pick things up so that’s really helped. Obviously Izayah, we saw him have success in this system a few years ago. With his speed, moving him around, we need that. With the depth at wideout, it’s critical,” Mark Stoops said following Fan Day.

“We will get more creative and more multiple as we go along. Liam already does a very good job with formations and motioning and all the different things that we do, and then to be able to do it in the same personnel group will be important.”