Finally, the Kentucky Offense is Explosive

by:Nick Roush•01/07/24•

RoushKSR

The Kentucky offense was far from perfect in 2023. The Cats were inefficient on a down-to-down basis both running the football and completing passes. Even so, they dramatically improved on the scoreboard from 2022 by averaging nine more points per game (29.1). Liam Coen accomplished this by creating one of the most explosive offenses of the Stoops era.

For years it was an annual rite of passage for this blogger to pen a piece on what the Kentucky offense was doing to be more explosive. A few examples from the Eddie Gran era:

Oct. 2017: “Cats are Chasing the Elusive Deep Ball”
Nov. 2018: “Eddie Gran says offense needs to get back urgency”
Aug. 2019: “After not screwing up in 2018, Eddie Gran plans to add explosiveness in 2019”
(In fairness, that actually worked in 2019, but in a way nobody anticipated. More on that later.)

What was once arguably the biggest issue plaguing this program became the strength of the offense in 2023. Ray Davis was second in the SEC in long rushing plays with nine of 30+ yards. Dane Key, Barion Brown and Davis combined for ten of those plays through the air. The Wildcats were boom or bust, but the boom was a lot of fun.

Kentucky Explosive Plays since 2018

Kentucky tallied 30 plays of 30+ yards for only the fourth time in the Mark Stoops era. Neal Brown accomplished that feat in ’14 and Jeff Badet and Juice set the high-water mark in ’16. The outlier is the ultimate outlier, Lynn Bowden. He ranked third nationally with 11 runs of 30+ yards. That team tallied 24 explosive plays on the ground during that season.

Liam Coen made Kentucky explosive in 2023. He’s bringing back playmakers in the passing game and adding another big-play athlete. Ja’Mori Maclin caught five passes of 50+ yards last fall, tied for the sixth-most in all of college football. If Brock Vandagriff can get it to his weapons, YouTube Dan will have to put in some overtime to create next year’s explosive play montage.