With a healthier roster, Kentucky got more done this spring than last

Kentucky opened Kroger Field’s gates to its most passionate football fans for a Saturday Showcase with the Wildcats. The spring practice finale took the place of the traditional Blue-White scrimmage of the past, partly due to player safety on the last day of the spring session. Last year, Kentucky couldn’t hold a Blue-White Game due to its long list of injured players in spring ball. The team avoided the injury bug in 2025, and Mark Stoops wanted to keep it that way by limiting the contact with an abbreviated open practice and scrimmage for the fans. “Last spring, you know, I felt like, you know, with the injuries that we came out of spring practice, it set us back for the year,” Stoops explained before Saturday’s showcase.

After Saturday’s showcase, Stoops spoke about the injury list in his post-practice press conference at Kroger Field and the progress made with a mostly healthy roster this year, unlike last.

“Unfortunately, we lost a wide-out again early in the scrimmage, so I think we were down five, five guys that will play, you know, at wide receiver,” Stoops explained. “We got through the whole spring for the most part, until, you know, this last week with a bunch of nagging injuries, hopefully, nothing season-ending.”

DJ Miller, Fred Farrier, Preston Bowman, and tight end Willie Rodriguez were four pass-catchers not in uniform on Saturday.

“Last year, we lost some guys in the spring for season-ending injuries, and that wasn’t good. It’s hard to overcome. And this year, you know, I felt like going into today that we got the work done throughout the previous 14 practices, things we weren’t able to do a year ago.”

“I’m happy with the way things went.”

Stoops continued to compare this season to last, when the Wildcats were extremely limited in the spring, including eight injured defensive linemen this time last year.

“You go back to last spring and then even through fall camp, we were short some numbers, and it hurts you with the way you practice. And it carried over into the games last year, and some of it is on us or not being good enough in certain areas, but, you know, when you get into those critical third-and-ones, third-and-two goal lines that we got stopped on so many times, we were able to do that full tilt this spring and get that work done with the bigger bodies in there. Those are the areas that I’m talking about.”

This year, the receiver room is the most banged up, but Kentucky’s available players still performed on Saturday, guys like Ja’Mori Maclin, Kendrick Law, David Washington Jr., Montavin Quisenberry, and Troy Stellato, each with at least one big reception in the scrimmage.

“Then you get short in one particular area, like the receiver room got towards the end of spring, it really takes away from the whole team, just the way you operate, the way you practice, the way you scrimmage and so on. So, you know, with that being said, I’m happy with the way things went. Today was a very generic, very vanilla, you know, bland scrimmage, but it’s still football, getting guys out there and seeing them run, throw, catch, tackle–or, you know, thud–and get in position and play blocks and all those things. So it was, overall, a very productive spring. Glad to put it in the books and put the wraps on it.”

Practice may be over for the spring, but Stoops said the team will get right back to work with meetings and weights to maintain the progress made over the 15 spring practices.

Hear more from Mark Stoops here.