2025 Opponent Offseason Storylines: Does Kentucky have two quarterbacks or none?

After a 10-3 2021 season where the Kentucky Wildcats finished second in the SEC East and won the Citrus Bowl, Kentucky is 18-20 over the last three years with two 7-6 seasons before a bottoming out at 4-8 in 2024. The Wildcats won one SEC game in 2024, an almost inexplicable win over Ole Miss in Oxford.

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This came after Mark Stoops had a dalliance with Texas A&M in late 2023 that was scuttled before former Aggies athletic director Ross Bjork could get pen to paper. The obvious attempt to leave Lexington impacted the Wildcats in 2024, leaving UK winless versus FBS team after September. Plus, their only win the rest of the year was over in-state Murray State, which went 1-11 in the FCS.

That’s all to say, things are not looking up in Lexington. Stoops’ last three recruiting classes were ranked 28th, 25th, and 32nd, all near the bottom of the SEC. Those classes have seen plenty of portal departures, and the transfer classes brought in during the last two windows were ranked 14th and 23rd.

So in what may be a pivotal year for Stoops, one where he’ll be paid over $9 million, his quarterback options are Cutter Boley and Zach Calzada.

Texas fans may remember Boley from his start in Austin. A four-star from a town just over an hour from Lexington, Boley took over after the unmitigated failure of the Brock Vandagriff experiment. Versus Texas, he struggled going 10-for-18 for 160 yards and a pick. Similar held true for the ensuing Louisville game, where he was 6-for-15 with two interceptions.

So to push Boley ahead of 2025, Stoops brought in competition. He looked to the UIW quarterback pipeline where players in offenses called by Eric Morris and GJ Kinne excelled. And to Calzada’s credit, he flourished in San Antonio. He earned conference newcomer of the year honors in 2023, player of the year honors in 2024, and was an FCS third-team All-American.

While Calzada has done well during his FCS days, his FBS exploits are almost non-existent.

Aside from a performance of a lifetime versus Alabama in 2021, Calzada hasn’t done a lot to inspire confidence in what’s likely his final year of eligibility. For his FBS career, he’s 196-for-352 (55.7%) for 2318 yards with 19 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. At UIW, he was 531-for-807 (66%) for 6342 yards with 54 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. He also rushed 105 times for 332 yards and five scores for the Cardinals in 2024 on their way to the FCS Quarterfinals.

But the SEC is a lot different than the FCS. Even Cam Ward had an intermediate stop at Washington State. For Calzada, it’s a bounce-back chance after not playing in 2020 or in 2022, the first due to a Jimbo Fisher decision and the second at Auburn due to a shoulder injury.

It’s another case of Stoops playing the portal quarterback lottery. Vandagriff had a 10-to-8 touchdown to interception ratio and was benched for Boley in 2024. Devin Leary couldn’t make things work after leaving NC State. Not since Will Levis was playing at Kroger Field has UK put a quality product under center. Boley represents the first try at making a home-grown QB work, but Stoops felt the need to bring in a portal player for his program.

So the question is, can either Boley or Calzada, two players without much consistent success at the FBS level, buoy a program that’s looking stuck in the mud?

And that’s without even looking across the rest of the roster, one that saw defensive standouts like Maxwell Hairston and Deone Walker leave for top-110 selections in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Things have been trending poorly for Stoops. Will he hit the portal lottery for the first time since Levis? Can Boley develop after a struggle-filled freshman year?

If the answer to either of those questions is no, it won’t bode well for the longest tenured head coach in the SEC.

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2025 Opponent Offseason Storylines

• Ohio State: Can Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith carry a team?
• San Jose State: SJSU made key retentions not often seen at the G5 level
• UTEP: The Miners have a five-star quarterback?
• Sam Houston: Phil Longo has a lot of issues to deal with
• Florida: There’s a large weight on DJ Lagway’s shoulder
• Oklahoma: Sooners rest their hopes on Brent Venables’ ability to put it all together
• Vanderbilt: Diego Pavia’s eligibility battle means he’ll get another crack at Texas