What if I told you Cody Fueger's 'boom' GIFs are hand-picked by the players?

Boom season is among us, Kentucky assistant coach Cody Fueger welcoming each new commitment for the program with a new GIF. It’s a warning sign of what’s to come, the equivalent of a Yahtzee! for Mark Stoops, Vince Marrow and the football Cats. Mark Pope’s former right-hand man at BYU now has Big Blue Nation waiting on pins and needles, fans setting up tweet notifications impatiently awaiting the arrival of the next Wildcat.

Boom means it’s right around the corner, starting this past weekend, a Denzel Washington GIF turning into a public commitment from Oklahoma transfer Otega Oweh. From there, Jon Stewart GIF teasing Wake Forest transfer Andrew Carr‘s addition, then another Kenny Powers GIF previewing a surprise commitment from Oklahoma State’s Brandon Garrison. Fueger wrapped things up this week with a double-boom, starting with a Drake GIF for Dayton’s Koby Brea and closing out with a Danny DeVito GIF for West Virginia’s Kerr Kriisa.

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— Cody Fueger (@Cody_Fueger) May 1, 2024

Theories ran wild regarding the substance of each GIF, fans connecting each actor, character or scene with the players set to commit. Take the Kenny Powers GIF for example, released the morning many expected Brea to be the next boom candidate. Danny McBride is sporting a white suit and cowboy hat in a scene from Eastbound & Down, shooting a double finger gun.

Shooter = Brea, the best 3-point shooter in the portal by a country mile. Easy.

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— Cody Fueger (@Cody_Fueger) April 30, 2024

And then it ended up being Garrison, formerly an Oklahoma State Cowboy — duh, obvious connection.

But what does that mean for all of the others? What does Jon Stewart have to do with Andrew Carr? Or Drake with Koby Brea — no Canadian connections there beyond Toronto being on the other side of Niagara Falls for the New York native, albeit 400-plus miles away from Washington Heights. That doesn’t add up. And don’t even get me started with potential Danny DeVito connections to Kerr Kriisa.

There doesn’t appear to be a rhyme or reason to any of the GIFs in terms of clues, nothing tying the short looping clips to the news about to drop.

Or is there?

There is a connection to the players, but maybe not how you’d expect. The booms are not meant to be hints, but rather subtle ways for the soon-to-be Wildcats to break their own commitments. Each target ready to make it official hand-picks their own boom GIF and forwards it to the staff, Cody Fueger then dropping the bomb on Twitter.

It’s simple and inconsequential on the surface, but still a personalized touch that helps fans get to know the next era of Wildcats a little bit more before they arrive on campus. When you think of Kerr Kriisa’s addition for Kentucky, he wants you to think of Danny DeVito walking away from an explosion wearing a puppy sweater with money falling from the sky.

And we wouldn’t have it any other way.