Cole Lanter at Kroger Field with former UK star Wan’Dale Robinson and coach Mark Perry before a 2021 UK game.
He was out about seven months after needing labrum surgery to repair his shoulder which was not exactly the best way for a walk-on player to impress the Kentucky football coaching staff.
However, former Boyle County standout Cole Lanter never lost confidence in his ability to play for the Wildcats and Monday after practice coach Mark Stoops announced he was on scholarship.
“God is good. Keep the faith no matter what your road looks like. Thank you Lord and thank you @UKCoachStoops,” Lanter posted on social media.
He had accepted a preferred walk-on offer from the Cats after helping Boyle go 52-3 in his four years — and win state titles in 2020 and 2021 — when he had 35 touchdown catches and 2,253 yards receiving in his career. He had 78 catches for 1,288 yards and 21 scores his senior season in 2021. His receiving touchdowns and total receptions both led the state and he was second in receiving yards.
Lanter had scholarship offers from Murray State and Eastern Kentucky along with four Division II scholarship offers when he said yes to Kentucky.
Lanter, who had a 4.0 grade-point average at Boyle, enrolled at UK in January of 2022 and in his first Blue-White Game he caught a touchdown and celebrated with a back flip in the end zone.
Lanter had been on scholarship part of his time at UK but was not going into the season. Stoops told him if he played well, he would get it back and three weeks into preseason drills the UK coach had seen enough to put Lanter on full scholarship.
Lanter was at the Boyle County-Lexington Christian game in Danville Saturday night and was the halftime guest on the Boyle County Sports Network. He said then he was hoping to be on some special teams and thought he would be part of the travel team when UK plays its first road game Sept. 23 at Vanderbilt.
Stoops brought Lanter in front of the team after practice Monday and said he was a “good ole’ Kentucky boy” who wanted to be at UK.
“Been here a year and a half, busting his ass,” Stoops told the team in a video posted by UK Athletics. “Passed on scholarship opportunities. He came here, he bet on himself, he wanted to be part of this program … and we wanted to reward him with a scholarship.”
That touched off a big celebration by Lanter’s teammates who likely had no idea how much he had worked to get to this point.
After his junior season, he joined the track team to help his speed and he also started consuming 4,000 calories daily. He would lift weights in the morning and then have speed training in the afternoon and continue to do sprints after track season ended. I remember him telling him there were days he went to bed with his stomach aching from either eating so much or lifting so hard. But he went from 152 pounds in December of 2020 to 186 pounds before his senior football season in 2021.
Lanter is as excited as UK’s other receivers about having offensive coordinator Liam Coen back in Lexington.
“It should be a good time,” Lanter said. “We are going to have a really good offense.”
He’s also a big fan of new quarterback Devin Leary.
“Will (Levis) had an absolute cannon and hit you anywhere on the field but with Devin there is no drop off. Tell Devin to hit a fly on the wall and he will do it. He’s that good,” Lanter said.
