Liam Coen, right, was with Mark Stoops and Vince Marrow when UK recruited Dane Key and could be who Stoops is targeting to be UK's offensive coordinator again. (Twitter Photo)
With speculation swirling that Mark Stoops was on the verge of rehiring Liam Coen as Kentucky’s offensive coordinator, the Kentucky coach indicated Monday that he was not quite ready to name Rich Scangarello’s successor quite yet.
Scangarello was fired after one season following the departure of Coen to the Los Angeles Rams after he spent only one season in Kentucky when the Cats won 10 games.
“I’m in the middle of talking to several people,” Stoops said Monday. “I had a great conversation with a potential candidate yesterday. I’m gonna meet with another one here this week.
“I’ve already spoken to several others, so I feel like there’s some very good options out there, and i’m not going to limit myself, so we’ll see where it goes, i’m optimistic, i’m excited.”
“Each time this position seems to open up, there’s even more and more interest in the job, which is a good sign to me.”
This will be Kentucky’s fourth offensive coordinator in four years once the hire is made and the new offensive coordinator won’t have quarterback Will Levis and running back Chris Rodriguez, two of UK’s best all-time players at their positions.
Kentucky averaged just 22.1 points-per game last season, never got to 40 points in a game and did not score more than 27 points in any SEC game. That led to Scangarello, who came to UK from the San Francisco 49ers, being fired.
“There’s many factors that go into it as you can imagine, i’ll be guarded in that out of respect that I have for Rich,” Stoops said when asked about what led to the change. “I think he’s a very good football coach that’s very bright.
“Sometimes things don’t work out and sometimes you need to make a change for a variety of reasons. I don’t want to throw one or two of those out there and have it grab a headline.”
“Obviously I felt the change was needed or I would not have done it. I’m very excited about where this could lead.”
Stoops did admit there were some issues with Scangarello’s offense that led to the change, including UK being last in the nation in the time it took to snap the ball from one play to the next.
“I definitely think taking that long to spit out play-calls and some of that terminology with the NFL scheme I got to think about, because running a play every 38 seconds … I definitely wanna look at that, yes,” Stoops said.
“I want to create explosive plays. Is that tempo? Is that run-pass? All that, you put it together and you’ve got to look at things and analyze things and always try to adapt and ultimately hire the best coach that fits us. Somebody that has that ability to adapt, not just be one thing or another.”
Stoops also said it was more important to make the right hire than to make a hasty hire just because of what a player or players in the transfer portal might be deciding based on who the coach might be.
“I think you have to have some urgency about you but no panic,” Stoops said. “I’m not going to rush things. It’s vitally important that we hire the right guy. You have to get the right person rather than rush just to get one player or to worry about that.”
4 Responses
There is so much speculation swirling around this decision that Coen is all but a done deal, and then these comments.
Hmmm. Maybe the word on the street is not quite on the mark, you think?
Gino Guidugli maybe?
Well, we can guess all we want but Coach will get who he gets! Coach get a taste of what Coen was selling and he liked it. Now he has to find a guy than can deliver. My guess is, if Stoops is successful, the guy won’t be here long; maybe 3 years at most. People like that are in demand for head coaching jobs that pay a loooooot of money. One the other hand, if successful, it will be a fun ride.
It’s not a matter of panic, but other OCs and coaches are working the transfer portal hard. Why pick a guy to only but him behind the 8 ball his first year because we had no sense of urgency? Coaching is a year round job. Waiting will only make it harder to get a good guy.