What went wrong for Kentucky's offense? Bush Hamdan: "It starts with me."

Kentucky football finished the season ranked No. 114 nationally and No. 14 in the SEC in total offense with 330.4 yards per game while also closing things out at No. 119 overall and No. 16 in the SEC in scoring offense at 20.6 points per game. The Wildcats averaged 184.8 passing yards per contest (No. 110 overall, No. 14 in the SEC) and 145.6 rushing yards per outing (No. 82 overall, No. 12 in the SEC) — abysmal on both fronts.

The numbers matched what your eyes saw for 12 games in 2024: Kentucky’s offense was a train wreck, and not even the kind you can’t look away from. Bush Hamdan‘s unit was consistently inconsistent with very few bright spots, if any. Dane Key had stretches of brilliance while Demie Sumo-Karngbaye was fine in Chip Trayanum‘s absence, plus the emergence of Jamarion Wilcox as a dynamic backfield piece oozing potential who also needs to tie his shoes and stop fumbling the football. Cutter Boley picked up a fifth of Brock Vandagriff‘s passing production in essentially six quarters of football and Mark Stoops is committed to building around the kid moving forward.

The rest? A big, sloppy bowl of disappointment. Poor offensive line play led to poor quarterback and running back play which led to poor wide receiver and tight end play. It all overlapped and all stunk.

What went wrong? Hamdan doesn’t have a clear answer for that because there isn’t a clear answer.

“I think we gotta do a big soul-searching on that, if you will. I can never pinpoint just one specific area,” the first-year offensive coordinator said.

It starts with a lack of identity and discipline leading to unsustainable highs and far-too-frequent lows with turnovers, penalties and poor execution, to put it simply.

“Obviously, as you guys know well throughout the year, there’s been a mixture of a lot of things,” Hamdan said. “Whether it’s been penalties, whether it’s been turnovers. For me at times, when you feel like you wanna go be aggressive, you just are constantly in that mode of dialing it back, turning it on, dialing it back.”

The list of wrongs is long with plenty of blame to go around at all position groups. When that happens, though, it falls on the leader of the unit, and Hamdan holds himself accountable on that. The offense has to get better under his watch.

“It starts with me, but unfortunately, we were unable to put a winning formula together and we gotta figure that out,” he said.

Thinking a change is on the table at offensive coordinator after the Wildcats have had six different play-callers in six straight seasons? Think again. After telling the media Hamdan was undoubtedly returning to Kentucky in 2025 following the loss at Texas, Stoops doubled down after the Louisville blowout.

In short, he says the lack of continuity has been the offense’s biggest downfall in recent years. The best change is no change, and that’s what fans should expect going into next season.

“Offensively, I think it’s relatively important — there are people, if you watch college football, if you watch other teams and you see the consistency year to year, you can see them getting better. I think I’m excited to keep that continuity and get better,” Stoops said. “… We’ve got to have some continuity.  We haven’t had any continuity on the offensive side in a long time, and that’s hurt us. It’s caught up to us. That excites me to get back to work on that.”

The pieces may change in terms of personnel, but the foundation is set in terms of staff.