Kentucky passing game is one of the worst in college football

ksr-today-offense-day-fall-camp-kentucky-football-sec-netflix-hard-knocks-bills — Kentucky Offensive Coordinator Bush Hamdan instructs QB's during practice at the Joe Craft football practice field in Lexington, Ky. on Aug. 1, 2025 - © Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The passing game has never been a strength for the Kentucky football program under Mark Stoops. The Wildcats have churned through both offensive coordinators and starting quarterbacks in search for solutions. There have been scheme changes and transfer portal experiments. Yet, the passing game is consistently one of the worst in college football.

That has not changed in 2025. We are early in the season but Kentucky is towards the very bottom in just about every passing statistic through eight quarters of football this season.

Completion Percentage: 46.4% (No. 134 overall)
Yards Per Attempt: 4.9 (No. 123 overall)
QB Rating: 83.66 (No. 132 overall)
EPA/Dropback: -0.56 (No. 136 overall)
Passing Success Rate: 27.6% (No. 132 overall)
Yards Per Dropback: 4.62 (No. 122 overall)

There are 136 teams in the FBS this season. Arguably no one is worse at passing the football than Kentucky in the early going. This comes just one year after offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan led an offense that ranked No. 89 in success rate (40.6%), No. 107 in yards per play (5.25), No. 109 in red zone touchdown percentage (52.94%), No. 115 in points per drive (1.61), and No. 118 in EPA/play (-0.08). That passing game ranked sub-100 or worse in everything but yards per attempt (No. 79 overall). Last year’s group had the threat of explosive plays. We have not seen this year’s group present that yet.

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All of this comes just after an offseason where Hamdan played a big role in building the offensive roster. The play-caller got to pick a quarterback from the transfer portal and helped out in a massive wide receiver room rebuild that included bringing in five scholarship transfers.

Kentucky is running the football effectively (No. 32 in EPA/rush, No. 42 in rushing success rate, No. 52 in non-sack yards per rush) but the passing game and the inability to create explosive plays has been sinking the offense. UK has not scored more than two offensive touchdowns in 10 games against power conference opponents under Hamdan. Bad passing game results have a lot to do with that.

Another long season for the offense seems very likely if the throw game does not get fixed.