When Mark Stoops and the Kentucky Wildcats take the field on September 3 against Southern Mississippi they will have their 3rd offensive coordinator in three years.
Earlier this week the school announced Eddie Gran would be leaving his job at the University of Cincinnati to come down I-75 to become offensive coordinator and co-head coach of the offense.
Gran and Stoops are no strangers as they coached together under Jimbo Fisher at Florida State from 2010-2012 with Gran coaching the running backs and special teams while Stoops was the defensive coordinator. The Seminoles always rank near the top of college football in punt and kick off returns and as horrendous as Kentucky’s special teams have been the last couple of seasons that may be reason alone to be excited about his hire.
Gran also brings 15 years of experience coaching in the SEC at Auburn, Ole Miss and Tennessee, most of those years under Tommy Tuberville who is the head man at Cincinnati.
He replaces Shannon Dawson who was shown the door after only one season at Kentucky. Stoops’ first two years Neal Brown was offensive coordinator and he is now the head coach at Troy.
Along with Gran, Darrin Hinshaw will also come to Kentucky. At Cincinnati he was the quarterbacks coach and was a terrific quarterback in his collegiate days at Central Florida.
Whether Gran is the answer True Blue Fans are looking for in the offense remains to be seen but on paper it certainly seems to be a step in the right direction. There is a large contingent of the UK fan base that are enamored with the “Air Raid” style of offense and will only be happy with the Cats throwing on every down and even finding a way to throw on kickoffs and punts. Ok I am being a little sarcastic here but you get the picture.
If you look at the numbers at Cincinnati it certainly gives UK fans a reason to be excited. Under Gran the Bearcats were the 7th most prolific offense in football with 568 yards per game, 369 of that through the air, ranking them 6th in the nation.
The Bearcats had more yards through the air than the Kentucky offense had in total offense in 2015.
If you look even closer at the numbers when he was at Florida State the Seminoles ran the ball for over 200 yards a game. You would think the talented running backs the Cats have returning in Boom Williams, Mikel Horton and JoJo Kemp have to be excited by that.
The only time many Kentucky fans probably watched Cincinnati was in the Aloha Bowl in which starting quarterback Gunner Kiel did not play and back up Hayden Moore struggled throwing for only 200 yards and three interceptions in a 42-7 loss. That set many folks off on the message boards and Twitter but as we all know one game does not make a season.
It would seem that Mark Stoops has made home run hires in Eddie Gran and Darrin Hinshaw, but of course the proof will be on the field. The SEC defenses are a big step up from the ones in the AAC where Cincinnati plays. It also remains to be seen whether a fan base that is still upset from back to back seasons of failing to make a bowl game after started the season strong will embrace the new hires.
