Deuce Hogan left Iowa after barely playing for two seasons and came to UK as a walk-on. (Iowa Athletics Photo)
With Beau Allen’s transfer from Kentucky, that likely means Iowa transfer Deuce Hogan — a four-star prospect from Texas in the 2020 recruiting class who had a scholarship offer to Georgia — will become Will Levis’ backup going into the season.
The 6-4, 205-pound Hogan played sparingly at Iowa and transferred after Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz made a remark about his playing ability — or lack of playing ability — that he later apologized for saying. However, Hogan obviously took exception and transferred.
During UK’s spring practice, he made it clear he had moved past what happened at Iowa.
“I moved 16 hours from home and kind of cut the umbilical cord, is the best way I could say it. You just learn to do your own thing. I’m responsible for myself for the first time,” he said.
“Luckily, I come from an unbelievable family with a great mom and dad, so I was taken care of. Not necessarily babied, but you know, there’s a transition from boy to man. Iowa was there to experience that transition and other rough spots just like everybody goes through.”
“I’ve done some of the harder things and so I would say my experiences outside of football have just kind of caused me to grow up, age me in a good way, I think.”
Hogan obviously found an atmosphere at Kentucky he liked a lot more.
“You walk into the locker room and everyone’s dancing and laughing, music’s playing when everybody’s lifting. Everybody just looked like they were having fun,” Hogan said.
“There can be places where people are more strict, but I think there’s a lot of value in everybody wanting to be in the facility that day, everybody wanting to wake up and go be with those coaches and be in that weight room.”
Hogan liked what he found at Kentucky so much that he came to Lexington as a walk-on player, something four-star prospects just do not do but he did.
He almost made it clear during spring practice that he understood how the transfer portal has changed college football and that he liked UK’s history of giving transfers an equal opportunity.
“It kind of shows that they will give whoever an opportunity,” Hogan said. “I’m all about loyalty. When you recruit a kid and that kid’s family, it’s awesome to give that kid an opportunity.”
“On the other side of it, there is a business aspect to this whole thing, as everybody knows, so to see guys come in and be able to make an instant impact is very attractive.”
Now with Allen gone, Hogan is going to have even more of a chance of making an impact at Kentucky.
3 Responses
Unless Will gets hurt, this kid will watch the game from the sidelines just like Beau did. There are games when the outcome gets determined early. Stoops is bad about leaving his starters in those games when it would be a great learning experience for the backups, especially the quarterback. Maybe he doesn’t want to give any chance for starting a controversy about who does play, but it leaves the backups in a precarious position should and injury happen and they have to play.
I think Beau Allen is making the right move if he wants to play. Deuce could turn out to be a great one but given Stoops’ tendency with QB’s I’d say it’s 50/50 unless Levis gets hurt. In the past Stoops has recruited an in state QB only because the Lexington press corps gives him the devil about not recruiting in-state talent. When he does, they end up riding the pines because Stoops’ history and apparently DNA is to get his QB starter from the "portal", already developed. Stoops appears to be able to develop most positions but not QB. Those he gets from the "portal".
If Levis does not get hurt this season, Deuce can forget about any serious playing time until next season. But by then, he will have no doubt have to compete against another "portal" acquisition that Stoops comes up with for next spring. For Deuce’s sake, I hope I am wrong but Mark Stoops has not proven me wrong yet.
RJ, you have Stoops pegged to a tee.