Monday Huddle: Kentucky has QB controversy in Week 3

The first adversity of the season has arrived for the Kentucky football program. It likely won’t be the last wave to arrive. How will this team respond? We’re about to find out.

Mark Stoops and his football program are entering a very interesting stretch in the schedule. The Cats host Eastern Michigan in a game where the Wildcats are heavy, heavy favorites against one of the worst teams in the FBS. Looming next week is the first bye of the season before arguably the biggest game on the schedule. That means we’re shifting into learning mode.

Will we learn anything about the team this week in the first night game at Kroger Field? A potential QB controversy has arrived, and the program rebuild from this offseason will be tested now. One way or another, we will probably learn something.

KSR’s Monday Huddle is back to set the table for another football week. Kentucky has some stuff to figure out but there’s no hiding from the importance of that game at the end of the month.

First Down: Zach Calzada vs. Cutter Boley

When Kentucky went to the transfer portal again after the 2024 season to address the quarterback position, there was some frustration shared by the fan base about once again doing this. This positional’s lack of development has been under the microscope for a long time now. Then fall camp happened and Cutter Boley kept getting praise from the coaching staff making it sound like there was a true QB competition.

There was never a true QB competition, but it does sound like it could be Boley time again after Zach Calzada suffered a shoulder injury in the fourth quarter of the loss to Ole Miss.

“Let’s just look at it the way it is. I mean, he’s banged up. I don’t know to what extent I would think he would more than likely miss Monday or Tuesday, I would think,” Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said in postgame on Saturday. “But I want to see Cutter. Yeah. I want to see him. Yeah.”

So what does this mean? I think we could find out early this week. Stoops will hold his weekly press conference on Monday afternoon and then will follow that with a radio show. Offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan will speak on Tuesday. It only took us to Week 3 to have some type of QB controversy.

Throughout his career as an offensive coordinator, Hamdan has a track record of playing multiple quarterbacks. That time may have now arrived in 2025. Kentucky signed Calzada to provided stability and higher floor for the offense this season before handing the keys over to Boley in year three. But this was kind of the same thing we said about Brock Vandagriff last season. The veterans brought in from outside the building are not acclimating to the offensive system very well and the floor looks pretty low. It could just be time to make the switch to Boley. The redshirt freshman is 27-of-56 (48.2%) for 338 yards (6.7 yards per attempt) with two touchdowns and four interceptions in 123 career snaps. When called upon, there have been some bright moments but the overall inefficient play of the offense has remained. But Kentucky can’t have what played out on offense in the first two weeks. Something has to change.

Hamdan is now entering game 15 with the Kentucky football program and his offense is showing no real signs of improvement. The Cats have not scored more than two offensive touchdowns in 10 power conference games, have made multiple quarterback changes, and struggled drastically just to get plays in and called in the first big game of the 2025 season after the play-caller played a huge role in the team-building process that included bringing in a lot of experience. All of this was done to raise the floor of the offense. The floor has not been raised through eight quarters.

The operation’s overall ineffectiveness has put the program in a place it does not want to be early in a season. Now a tough decision must be made. Is Boley ready? How negative will it get around the program if UK decides to stick with Calzada? We’re about to find out.

Second Down: Kentucky’s rebuild will be tested now

The rebuild in the offseason from Kentucky football had many, many goals. Kentucky had to find true roster depth and needed to find starters at multiple positions. But the program also needed to construct a tougher football team that could get off the mat, handle adversity, and fight through tough moments.

Kentucky folded many times last season when things started to get tough. The 2025 team did not fold when they ate some punches against Ole Miss. That needs to remain a trend.

When the offense was dead in the water on Saturday, they pulled out a 75-yard, six-play drive from nowhere as Seth McGowan ran wild to tie the game at 20 in the middle of the third quarter. After quickly giving up the lead, the defense bounced-back quickly to create two stops with the game still in doubt. Kentucky could not get the final stop but the unit showed some resilience.

That kind of fight will be needed for the rest of the season. Kentucky brought in 50 new players in the offseason. There are first-year transfers starting at quarterback, tailback, wide receiver, left tackle, left guard, right tackle, outside linebacker, defensive tackle, and defensive end. Those new players are being leaned on to help reset the culture and build an improved foundation for the program. That foundation has received its first test.

There is a quarterback change brewing, the team just lost a game where the offense couldn’t finish drives, and the noise outside of the building is starting to grow very loud. The offseason rebuild’s No. 1 goal was to build a tough, disciplined, physical football team with depth that could survive a grueling season in the Southeastern Conference. That grind is just getting started now.

How Kentucky handles these next three weeks before facing Georgia and Texas in consecutive games could tell us a lot about how this season is going to go.

Third Down: That South Carolina game sure does feel important

The Mark Stoops era officially got rolling in 2014 when the Kentucky head coach beat South Carolina to record his first big home win. Kentucky then went to South Carolina in 2015 and picked up Stoops’ first career road win the very next season. That victory would lead to Steve Spurrier retiring as the Cats went 7-1 against the Gamecocks from 2015-21.

Unfortunately for Kentucky football, Shane Beamer has turned that series around over the last three years and now South Carolina is the program that is legitimately climbing the ladder in the SEC. It is Eastern Michigan week at the Joe Craft Football Training Facility. UK even has a bye week around the corner before making the trip to Columbia. However, there is no hiding from the significance of that game.

Kentucky is entering a tough stretch where they will go home game vs. Eastern Michigan, road game vs. South Carolina, bye, road game against Georgia, and bye before returning home to play Texas on Oct. 18 in the next home SEC game. An 0-4 SEC start seems possible. An 0-4 SEC start means 10 consecutive losses to power conference competition. This could be a very ugly streak that could be hard to get over.

Eastern Michigan enters this weekend’s contest at 0-2 with a defense that has given up over 230 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns in eight quarters of football against Texas State and FCS LIU. Former Louisville head coach Ron Cooper led the Sharks to a big upset win in Ypsilanti last week. EMU is trending to be one of the worst FBS teams in college football this season. This very much seems like a get-right spot for the Kentucky football program.

They need to use it wisely.

The Kentucky football program is headed for a crossroads moment in a game against South Carolina that is 19 days away. A win could help save the season and keep a frustrated fan base dialed in. A loss could create a lot of negative energy in the fan base and could be the start of the season spiraling out of control. This program desperately needs something good to happen and just missed a golden opportunity against Ole Miss. The next opportunity is a few weeks away, but UK must get some problems figure out now and in the bye week to give themselves a real chance to beat South Carolina again.

The week ahead at KSR

Game week is here, and KSR will provide the Big Blue Nation with in-depth pregame content from now until kickoff arrives on Saturday. The first night kickoff of the season at Kroger Field has arrived.

We will have full coverage of Mark Stoops’ press conference on Monday. We could get a new starting quarterback announcement. From there, practice reports and daily podcasts will take over as Saturday quickly approaches.

Over at KSR+, we will have our in-depth scouting report on Eastern Michigan published on Thursday along with some more preseason content before this big Week 2 game arrives. Kentucky must get off the mat after falling short in a big home. Some more big opportunities await and the program needs to use this week as a launching point for the rest of the season.