What we know heading into Kentucky Blue-White Spring game

An important part of the college football offseason officially arrives on Saturday afternoon in Lexington. The Kentucky football program will hosts its annual spring game at Kroger Field. On Moving Day at Augusta National, the Big Blue Nation will finally get treated to some football time in the Bluegrass before Kentucky shifts into its summer offseason training program.

For much of spring practice, Kentucky football has stayed under the radar despite having a new offensive coordinator and quarterback. The Wildcats are not making any declarative statements in press conference settings and team hype has been almost nonexistent. The program has had a focus on the fundamentals to this point and seems ready to get to the next point of the offseason.

Before that next point arrives on Tuesday when the spring transfer portal window opens, Kentucky will wrap up the spring at Kroger Field. Let’s dive into what we know about this year’s event.

Injury List

Kentucky is a banged-up football team as spring practice wraps up. Deone Walker likely won’t be in pads at the open event. There are seven other linemen dealing with injuries in Anwar Stewart‘s position room. Courtland Ford cannot be full-go after having surgery in the offseason. North Texas wide receiver transfer Ja’Mori Maclin has also missed spring practice.

There will be more than a handful of starters not participating on Saturday. A top goal in May and June for the program will be to get healthy.

Non-traditional Setup

Kentucky is not having its traditional spring game. The roster isn’t being split up to play an actual 11-on-11 game. On Saturday afternoon at Kroger Field, we will see more of spring practice. There will be the normal practice segments where Kentucky is working on fundamentals with a 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 team periods.

Throughout the event, Kentucky will have some special presentations for the fans, but we won’t see tackling to the ground. Expect to see “thud” techniquies where blockers complete their first movements and then hit the brakes. Tacklers will be asked to “tap” ballcarriers providing a little push but not completing tackles. It will be about like 75 percent football.

The two hours in the stadium will be different.

New Passing Game

Due to not being full-go, we should get an extended look at Kentucky’s passing game. New offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan and Georgia quarterback transfer Brock Vandagriff will debut to the Big Blue Nation on Saturday. The performance of the passing game might be the biggest takeaway.

What do we see from this group?

The early returns on Barion Brown and Dane Key have been strong. Early enrollee true freshman Hardley Gilmore IV might be a future star. How does Vandagriff look distributing the football? We know the offense will be different with Hamdan holding the call sheet. What does that look like?

We will get a glimpse in this open spring workout.