Mark Stoops continues to believe in Kentucky secondary: "(They) can be really good."

Could Kentucky lose a first-round pick at defensive back and see the secondary take a step forward in 2025, not backward? Mark Stoops wants to be careful with his words, but one thing is for certain: concern is not the correct descriptor.

Maxwell Hairston taking his talents to the Buffalo Bills is a massive blow, no other way to put it. His production spoke for itself, now stepping in as a plug-and-play corner for a Super Bowl contender. Elsewhere, though, the Wildcats have some sneaky upside in that room, leaving Stoops raving about the group’s tools on multiple occasions last week.

“The secondary can be a real strength of this team,” Stoops said on Monday, adding that it’s all mental for a group headlined by J.Q. Hardaway, D.J. Waller, Terhyon Nichols, Jordan Lovett, Ty Bryant, Cam Dooley, Quay’Sheed and Jantzen Dunn. “Where they could take it to another level — one thing is just really being dialed into the situation, football IQ, being very smart. What’s the down and distance? What’s the situation of the game? What’s coming? Anticipating things. I think with experience, they could take that to another level.”

Brad White talked about general depth to open the week, saying, “We have a lot of snaps, and we’re going to have to lean on ’em at times,” adding the defensive staff will “rely on (the secondary) a lot” as the “front continues to build cohesiveness.” They’ll let the corners get tested on one-on-ones that they “are going to have to win” — not every time, but “win more than they lose.” As for the safeties, they are “going to be playmakers.”

He continued pushing the by-committee approach to close out the week, thanks to the number of strong options the unit has to work with.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of pieces that can make a really cool puzzle,” White said. “In years past, we would count on six, seven, eight guys and they’d play 75 percent of the snaps and we’d lean in. That’s not what this group is gonna be. With this group, it’s gonna be, ‘Hey, you get 30 or 40 snaps, and you go all-out in your package. Then we’re gonna have someone else take 30 or 40 here, maybe 15 there.’ This is gonna have to be a collective defense. 20 guys are gonna have to play on any given day.”

Of those 20 guys, many are real talents in the secondary Stoops believes in. It’s early and they’ve got plenty of work to do before we call them the Legion of Boom, but the defensive backs are doing their job and the Kentucky head coach is pleased.

“I don’t want to get the cart in front of the horse, but I feel like the secondary can be really good,” Stoops said Saturday. “We’ve got some good experience, you can see the length we have out there with J.Q. (Hardaway) and D.J. (Waller). DJ is really playing good football, he really is. The safeties, they’ve got good experience and they can run. We need to keep them healthy and develop some depth.”

We’ll take it after one full week of fall camp and just under four weeks away from kickoff.