Anonymous coaches’ thoughts on the 2023 Kentucky Football team

Athlon Sports spoke with anonymous Power Five coaches in their yearly preseason magazine. It’s always a good bit of reading what some of the other coaches in the SEC think of Kentucky Football.

From the transfer portal to the re-addition of Liam Coen, coaches had nothing but bright things about Mark Stoops’ program.

Here is what was said, anonymously, regarding the 2023 version of the Kentucky Wildcats.

No one talks about how good they are in the portal. This is not a portal roster — they want you in the system long term — but they sneak out and plug position needs really well, like the kid from Virginia Tech [Tayvion Robinson] at WR, and the year before it was the guy from Nebraska [Wan’Dale Robinson],” one anonymous SEC coach said.

Kentucky has been one of the best teams in the transfer portal since it became. a thing in 2021 — three dominating years in the portal with filling positions that are sorely needed, such as offensive line.

On to the re-addition of Liam Coen:

“The change back at offensive coordinator is going to be a huge swing for them, even with [Will] Levis leaving for the NFL,” one anonymous assistant said. “They’re going to go back to a different SEC era, what you’d expect an Iowa guy like Mark to want to do — find wrinkles and formations and new-age stuff to run the ball and control the clock and help the defense.”

“If the QB transfer [Devin Leary] hits, they’re going to be as good as they’ve been in recent years.”

It seems that Liam Coen is well respected in the SEC, which would be hard not to respect him after his phenomenal 2021 season in which he helped them to a 10-win season.