Coach L'Damian Washington with Denairius Gray (Instagram Photo)
L’Damian Washington will not coach his first game at Kentucky for another eight weeks, but the first-year UK receivers coach has been making all the right calls/moves in recruiting.
He added a fourth receiver to Kentucky’s 2026 recruiting class Tuesday, and this was perhaps his biggest addition yet. Florida four-star receiver Denairius Gray, an Auburn commit, flipped to Kentucky. The 6-1, 170-pound Gray took an official visit to Kentucky in early June — he also took official visits to Washington, North Carolina State, and Ole Miss after committing to Auburn.
Rivals.com has him ranked 99th overall in the 2026 recruiting class and No. 14 on the receivers list nationally. Other recruiting services have him as a top 300 player nationally.
He had 48 catches for 11 touchdowns and 709 yards last season — an average of almost 15 yards per catch shows his ability to stretch the defense.
Washington has now secured commitments from receivers Dallas Dickerson and Prince Jean of Georgia, Davis McCray of Texas, and Gray — a remarkable feat considering UK’s problems in the passing game last season.
This was a huge win for Kentucky since Gray had been committed to Auburn for 18 months, and there had been serious anxiety over UK’s recruiting ability after Vince Marrow left for Louisville.
9 Responses
Must be an incredible recruiter to land a 4* receiver (who de-committed from Auburn!) considering the absence of a college level OC and a history of struggling offenses at UK due to the inept HC choking OC’s when he had good ones.
Congrats to Coach Washington for landing GRAY in spite of a GRAY gloomy atmosphere looming over UK FB..
Finally. A little football news albeit recruiting. I was beginning the believe that UK was out of the football business. Given that Stoops is still around maybe I was right.
Nice remark – beginning to think UK out of FB business since Stiops is still here.
This will be the 4th year of decline even if UK wins 5 instead of 3 or 4 games. It does not look good for a floundering program in the powerful SEC.
To no one’s surprise Strickland flipped to UL today. That leaves UL with 7 in-state commits….UK 0….Yes, we just might be working our way out of the FB program.
Who said we need Big dog to recruit. Seems like recruiting has been coming along fine since he left.
I just read where KY is eliminating child and UK employee discounts for attendance tickets for sporting programs citing revenue sharing with players etc. That would not be so onerous of the Cats could win some football games.
Raising ticket prices to pay that big HC salary. And the AD is probably tho king about giving him a bonus – ridiculous? Yes, but most of the AD contracts and throwing money to the wind has been ridiculous.
Not a good move IMO for them RJohn
There is some pub out there that BBN has embraced the motivated Mark Stoops edition. Evidence seems to be rather scant out there as he obviously fights to keep his overpaid job. What in the world is really going on with the Matt Ponataski waten. He has been a reported strong lean for some weeks now but it would appear the longer this lingers the greater the chance of abduction.