Quarterback uncertainty is not Kentucky football’s biggest problem

Quarterback uncertainty now dominates the Kentucky football discourse.

After UK benched starting QB Brock Vandagriff and went with Gavin Wimsatt under center for the entire second half of last Saturday’s 24-10 loss to Auburn, discussions about Kentucky’s situation at QB — both for this Saturday’s game at No. 7 Tennessee and for next season — are abundant.

Yet as we look to UK football’s future, quarterback is not the most-pressing problem that Mark Stoops and Co. must get fixed to reverse the disappointing results Kentucky (3-5, 1-5 SEC) has so far produced in 2024.

Simply put, the Kentucky football brain trust has to find a way to restore “The Big Blue Wall.”

One reason it’s been hard to fairly evaluate the up-and-down QB play Kentucky has gotten this year is because Wildcats signal callers have been under near-constant duress from opposing pass rushers — especially those coming off the edge.

Through eight games, UK is tied for 100th out of 133 FBS teams in sacks allowed, having surrendered a robust 20.

This is the second time in three seasons that Kentucky has been one of the poorest teams in FBS football at protecting its quarterback(s). In 2022, UK finished second from last nationally in sacks allowed after giving up a whopping 47.

Such offensive line struggles are a far cry from the days when the Stoops era was on the ascendancy. From 2016 through 2021, the Wildcats offensive front was named a Joe Moore Award semifinalist — an honor which signifies the nation’s best offensive line — four times in six seasons.

Over the four NFL drafts from 2019 to 2022, Kentucky had five offensive linemen selected.

It is hardly a coincidence that the Cats went 47-30 overall and 25-25 in the Southeastern Conference in those six years when “The Big Blue Wall” stood so strong.

As Kentucky has gone 17-17, 7-15 in the SEC, over the past three seasons, offensive line struggles have played a big part in the declining results.

While the problem is obvious, the solution is not so clear.

The vintage “Big Blue Wall” offensive lines built by the late John Schlarman were constructed around players recruited out of high school and developed. After the Kentucky offensive line coach’s cancer diagnosis in 2018 and subsequent death in 2020, the “supply chain” of quality UK offensive linemen seemed to break.

It did not help that three highly recruited offensive line prospects — Grant Bingham, Kiyaunta Goodwin and Nikolas Hall — from Kentucky’s 2022 recruiting class all saw their UK careers prematurely end for various reasons without them making any on-the-field impact.

With no other choice, UK has subsequently gone heavily into the transfer portal seeking offensive linemen. Of the Wildcats’ top seven players on the offensive front in 2024, five have transferred to UK from other schools.

The problem with that approach is there are not a bevy of SEC-caliber o-linemen in the portal in most years. As a result, the competition for the few transfer linemen capable of excelling in the Southeastern Conference is somewhere beyond fierce.

In the glory days of “The Big Blue Wall,” Kentucky could pound foes into submission with its power running game.

The UK run blocking has been good at times this season, too. However, the Wildcats have had at least one trip inside the opponents’ 5-yard line end without the Cats being able to punch the ball into the end zone in each of the past three games — all SEC defeats.

“We’ve got to change that focus a little bit — throw the ball more when we are down in those situations,” Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said Monday.

Moving forward, Stoops and UK seem caught in a trap. Any chance to rebuild “The Big Blue Wall” to its previous fortitude probably involves the slow build of developing players recruited out of high school.

Yet as a head coach who will be going into his 13th season in 2025, Stoops is not in position to prioritize development over immediate results.

In recent weeks, an injury to starting right tackle Gerald Mincey has given UK a view of what developing a young offensive lineman looks like. With Mincey out, redshirt freshman Malachi Wood, the 6-foot-8, 320-pound former Madison Central standout, has gotten a chance to play extensively the past two weeks.

After getting generally good reviews for his play at Florida, Wood was given an unusually harsh evaluation by one entity for his pass blocking against Auburn.

“I think he took huge strides against Florida. Like any young freshman, certainly, just took him a little bit of time to get comfortable, if you will, in this last game,” Hamdan said of Wood. “He is a guy we are excited about. He has a ton of potential, a ton of athleticism. He will continue to get better as he plays.”

With Kentucky set to see the eligibility of three of its five regular offensive line starters expire in 2024, the Wildcats probably will have to delve back into the transfer portal seeking immediate help on the offensive front again this offseason.

One bit of UK QB certainty is that it will not much matter who is playing quarterback for Kentucky in 2025 if the pass protection doesn’t get a lot better.

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