Mississippi State Football Film Preview: Examining Kentucky

Examining Kentucky’s Offense

In 2021, Kentucky scored 32.3 PPG, their most under Mark Stoops. In 2022, they scored just 20.4 PPG, their fewest under Mark Stoops. Both of those offenses featured a future NFL starter in QB Will Levis and strong skill position talent. So why the drastic drop-off?

For one, the most valuable unit on Kentucky’s offense fell off a cliff. The Wildcats have built around their “Big Blue Wall” OL for years. That unit was elite in 2021, paving the way for 5.23 yards per rush and allowing under two sacks a game. But last season they cratered, surrendering 3.54 sacks a game and blocking for just 3.26 YPC.

The other reason was play-calling. In 2021, the Cats had Liam Coen, a young OC who came from the LA Rams, where he served as a WRs and QBs coach for Sean McVay. After successfully implementing the McVay offense in Lexington, he got the call back to the big leagues to become McVay’s OC. To replace him, Mark Stoops tried to pluck someone from the same offensive tree by hiring Rich Scangarello from the 49ers. Scangarello came up under Kyle Shanahan, who of course worked with McVay and runs the same base offense that’s now taken over the NFL.

Well, Stoops’ plan failed. Obviously when your OL is bad, there’s only so much you can do as an OC. But Scangrello still didn’t put the Kentucky offense in the best position to succeed. The scheme was both vanilla and outdated. Will Levis got taken out of his comfort zone and seemingly regressed, and Scangrello was let-go after the season.

Levis is off to the NFL, but the Wildcats are suddenly scoring points again. Any guess as to why? Welcome back, Liam Coen! Stoops brought back Coen, and that decision has mostly paid off. There have been some rough moments for the Cats’ offense this season, but they’ve been no where close to as bad as they were in 2022.

It is a bit of a different offense though than when Coen was calling in 2021. Plenty of the concepts are the same, but there are some stylistic changes. You may be surprised to know that Kentucky is actually throwing it more than they’re running it this year, and when they do, there’s a lot more dropback game as opposed to being heavily reliant on play-action (which they still do plenty of).

That’s because of QB Devin Leary and his group of receivers. Leary is a pocket passer who’s equipped to handle a dropback passing game. He got off to a slow start to this season adjusted to a new system, but he’s coming off a fantastic game against Tennessee. The receiving corps is as talented a group as Kentucky has had in a long time.

The trio of Dane Key, Tayvion Robinson, and Barion Brown have nearly identical stats this season, combining for 78 catches, 1100 yards, and eight TDs. They’re all capable of winning one-on-one matchups. Here Leary connects with Barion Brown on a go-route against man coverage.

Still, it’s Kentucky, so you know their ground game is going to be of emphasis. Despite their scheme’s offensive tree being founded upon running Wide Zone better than anyone else, Kentucky isn’t a heavy Wide Zone team. But that’s not too shocking as the Rams offense Kentucky is taking from has been less zone-based in recent years. Instead you see more gap schemes. That’s the case with Kentucky, who runs a lot of Counter and even some old-school Trap. The Cats also love the Duo scheme.

Duo is famously referred to as “Power without the puller”. The play is literally meant to just drive the defensive front straight-back, knocking them off the ball with double-teams at the point of attack, hence the name “Duo”. It’s grown in popularity in recent years because the downhill, physicality of the play can overwhelm the smaller defensive fronts utilized to stop spread teams.

Duo’s also grown famous because the play tends to strike up countless never-ending debates on social media as to whether a particular between-the-tackles run with double teams is Inside Zone or Duo.

They can be hard to tell apart at times, especially in an instance like this in which a slant from the DL gets the entire OL looking as though they’re taking zone steps in one direction. This is in fact Duo though. The LG gives you a good key here with how he looks to pin back the strongside 4i (the DL shaded inside the LT) as opposed to climbing up to the MIKE LB. The RB’s initial track straight downhill also gives it away.

That RB is Ray Davis. A Vanderbilt transfer who’s been fantastic this season. He’s averaging nearly 103 YPG at 6.5 YPC with nine rushing TDs. He’s also been a big factor in the passing game, and actually leads Kentucky in receiving TDs with five. They love to get him out on screens. Here’s a screen for a TD against UGA off a play-action end around.

I haven’t discussed the OL yet, as that was the biggest discussion piece of Kentucky’s offense going into the year. So far, it’s a much improved group. Kentucky is averaging 5.5 YPC on the ground and are allowing just 1.5 sacks per game. It’s not the dominant unit we’ve seen in the past, but they’ve bounced back from 2022.