There's Not a Lot of Drop Off in the New-Look Kentucky Wide Receiver Room

You won’t find many familiar faces in the Kentucky wide receiver room. There are zero players with 15 receptions in a Wildcats uniform. Zero.

If you were to ask a fan to name one player in the wide receiver room, it would be Ja’Mori Maclin. After starring at North Texas, he failed to provide immediate production in Lexington. Once Bush Hamdan decided to pull the pin and take deep shots to Maclin, we saw fireworks.

Over the final four games of the season, he caught seven passes for 224 yards and four touchdowns, including an 83-yarder against Louisville. Mark Stoops is optimistic that those performances were an indication of what’s to come.

“The fact that he had success late in the season last year was a big plus, and it gave him a lot of momentum. It gave him the ability to take the leadership reins within that group,” Stoops said at the Lexington Kickoff Luncheon.

Maclin has emerged as the leader, but Kentucky needs much more than that to have an effective passing attack. Kendrick Law is poised to be the go-to guy out of the slot.

“It’ll be an extremely competitive group. Certainly, there’s guys like Ja’Mori Maclin that we know about, but it’s a deep, deep group. We think there’s probably six to seven players that will make a huge jump and that’s what it’s going to come down to is the overall consistency, day in and day out, getting better,” added offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan.

“A lot of the things we’ll do this year will go through Kendrick Law, who’s a transfer from Alabama who’s really impressed us as well. We really feel there’s two or three younger players who can be special for us.”

DJ Miller did not look like a true freshman during spring practice. The 6-foot-3 outside receiver has enough length and athleticism to earn some early looks. The future is bright for Hardley Gilmore, despite his transfer portal dipsy-doo this offseason. Kentucky also brought in a few vets from the transfer portal, like Troy Stellato and JJ Hester.

The competition for snaps will be fierce during fall camp. Each wide receiver will flash at times. Consistency will serve as the great separator. The good news is that so far through spring practice and OTAs, the Kentucky head coach believes the top six or seven guys have been steady.

“What’s nice about it, as we’re out there in the summer going through what we call OTAs, there’s sometimes not a lot of difference, with what units are going. There’s a lot of lot of good, fresh legs out there,” said Stoops.

Inconsistent play from the wide receivers has plagued the Wildcats throughout the Mark Stoops era. Ahead of the 2025 season, he’s challenging the new-look room.

“It is also fair for me to point out that we need that group to step up. We need them to be consistent. We need them to step up. We need to make difficult catches, and we need to be able to rely on them that they’re going to make the plays when we need them to,” said Stoops.