Devin Leary Has Special Relationship With Liam Coen

Quarterback Devin Leary (Vicky Graff Photo)

Quarterback Devin Leary transferred to Kentucky to learn from offensive coordinator Liam Coen but he’s developed a give-and-take relationship quickly with his new coach.

“As a player to a coach, I’ve always been taught and raised to sit back and learn and make sure that if I’m being coached I want to be coached as anyone on the entire team,” Leary said.

“But at the same time, me being an older guy, now going into my sixth year, I’ve had a lot of snaps under my belt that he’s able to listen to me at times, too, which is really a cool perspective from a quarterback.”

Leary understands that Coen has a perspective he doesn’t — or maybe most college offensive coordinators do not — because of his time in the NFL.

“He’s seen it at the highest level being around Matt Stafford, Jared Goff, so I always want to learn as much as I can from him, but pick his brain on what I could do better, too,” Leary said. “So I think it’s been a cool relationship.”

If former UK quarterback Freddie Maggard is right, it could turn out even better than that. On Kentucky Sports Radio, he said he would take Leary over any other SEC quarterback and said he “will be the best quarterback Mark Stoops has coached at Kentucky” even though both Terry Wilson and Will Levis led UK to 17 wins.

“There’s going to be quarterbacks that throw for more yards, more touchdowns and have more accolades based on scheme and system,” Maggard said on KSR. “As far as efficiency of what I would look for in a quarterback, I wouldn’t take any other signal-caller in the conference over Devin Leary.”