The Kentucky Wildcats have finally found their special teams coordinator, and it comes from within their current staff.
Head coach Mark Stoops announced Thursday that assistant coach Andy Buh had been promoted to special teams coordinator, a role that was not filled on last year's staff. Unfortunately for the Cats, it was painfully obvious at times that there was no coordinator for that often forgotten third aspect of the game.
While this role isn't quite as important as offensive or defensive coordinators, it still can be very crucial to a team's success or failure. That was evident during the 2014 season when UK's special teams took a notable drop-off following the departure of Bradley Dale Peveto, who was replaced with the ineffective Craig Naivar (and his hat).
Now, Buh will coach this unit after spending the 2015 season as UK's outside linebackers coach. He's previously served as defensive coordinator at Stanford, Nevada and California while also being the Wisconsin linebackers coach in 2012.
While UK's defense struggled mightily at times this season, the improvements of several linebackers were one of the bright spots. Most notably, Khalid Henderson was vastly improved this season after being a liability much of his career. Jason Hatcher, Jabari Johnson and Denzil Ware also had productive seasons under Buh's tutelage.
Hopefully, Buh will have a similar effect on a special teams unit that's been more of a liability than a strength over the past two seasons.