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New Kentucky receivers coach L’Damian Washington spent the previous two seasons as the WR coach and pass game coordinator at South Florida after spending the 2022 season at Oklahoma. He was also the director of play development at Missouri in 2020 when current UK offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan was the quarterbacks coach there.
Those who have watched Kentucky practice have seen an “excitable” Washington during drills as he interacts with his players. That made me wonder what Washington might be like on game day.
“I’m actually the complete opposite on game day. I tell the guys this during the week that you’re gonna get everything out of me, and I mean everything. On game day, I’m more hands off because I’ve given them everything that I could that week in practice and the meeting rooms,” the receivers coach said. “So on game day I let them go out and be themselves.
“Of course, I’m gonna help them with adjustments on the field and stuff like that. But I’m not yelling at screaming on game day because I need them just in that focused state of mind and getting in their zen zone that works for them. So on game day, I’m a much more quiet and reserved coach.”
Kentucky brought in five transfer receivers along with two true freshmen to expand the options Washington has to use in the 2025 season.
“I’m excited about the fall. I think the good thing in our group is that we have got a lot of guys that have a lot to prove,” Washington said. “We’re all up for the task. I know guys all want to possess the rock (football), but it is a really good thing that we have a lot of guys capable of making plays for us.”
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Any hope for the revival of amateur athletic sports at the collegiate level just died with Kentucky’s proposed Sports LLC (revenue sharing). If successful, the rest of what used to be the NCAA will follow suit. Kentucky will not able to compete financially in such a system for the same reason it cannot compete now. Kentucky’s pockets just aren’t deep enough as compared to the big boys in college football. Darn shame.
Revenue sharing has been coming for a while now. It’s not like Ky started it all. The Supreme Court did that. Ky is just trying to get ahead of the game for once.
And these comments on revenue sharing, as legitimate as they may be, have what bearing on this article?
I don’t know how we have such deep pockets for basketball but we don’t have deep pockets in football? Or is Stoops just dropping the ball that badly? He can’t reel in big fish in the high school class we never get 5* recruits and we never land the big fish in the transfer portal. I know basketball is easier because there is only 13 scholarships or maybe 15? Football our highest transfer portal player is #62 David Gusta? I mean how does that happen? And Jeff Brohm is reeling in anything he wants to in the transfer portal? I mean he’s killing it in high school and the portal and it seems like we struggle to even get recruits. We have one player in the 2026 class and he’s from Kentucky.
That’s also something that worries me in basketball. All of Popes recruits are from Kentucky in the high school ranks. He couldn’t close the deal on Ament. He couodnt close the deal on any top 15 recruit he went after. I know after what we went through with Calapari that recruits out of high school won’t make or break you, especially with the portal. I bet if you check in on all the recruits from even the 2023 class nobody is still at the same school so I don’t know how important high school recruiting is anymore? Pitino said he’s doing away with high school recruiting because you really never know what your going to get and usually if they are ranked high they want promised playing time and that doesn’t work if someone else on the team is better than them.