{"id":72392,"date":"2025-02-15T15:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T20:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=72392"},"modified":"2025-02-15T08:33:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T13:33:42","slug":"kentucky-post-portal-depth-chart-receivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/02\/15\/kentucky-post-portal-depth-chart-receivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky Post-Portal Depth Chart-Receivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello everyone and welcome back to the third installment looking at the 2025 Wildcats. In case you missed them the first one featured the quarterbacks.<\/a> The most recent featured the running backs. <\/a>Today we’ll finish up the skill positions. We’ll start with the wideouts and finish with the tight ends with the Kentucky post-portal depth chart receivers.<\/p>\n

A Huge Turnover<\/h2>\n

Tons Of Production Lost<\/h3>\n

Before you look ahead sometimes you must look back. The receiver position is one with some of the biggest turnover on the squad. The Cats lost Dane Key<\/a> and Hardley Gilmore to Nebraska. You could call it a two-for-one deal as UK picked up running back Dante Dowdell<\/a> from the Cornhuskers. In addition Barion Brown<\/a> is at LSU, Anthony Brown-Stephens is at Tulane and Brandon White is at Hawaii.<\/p>\n

If you are scoring at home that’s Kentucky’s top two receivers from a year ago and the school’s most prolific kick returner. In addition, Wildcats wide receivers coach Daikiel Shorts also left for Nebraska. As a result, the new man coaching this unit, L’Damian Washington has some work to do. Continuing with our Kentucky post-portal depth chart-receivers let’s look at who Kentucky is counting on in 2025.<\/p>\n

Finding Players To Step Up<\/h3>\n

The Cats use three receivers in their offense, calling them X, Y, and Z. Starting with the “X” the top options are both transfers. Your likely starter is Tru Edwards. <\/a>The seventh-year player comes to Lexington from Louisiana Tech. A season ago Edwards led Conference USA with 84 receptions and was second in yards with 986. As a result, he was a first-team selection.<\/p>\n

Right behind Edwards is another transfer, J.J. Hester<\/a> of Oklahoma. A graduate transfer, Hester hauled in 14 passes for 315 yards and a touchdown. That’s a very impressive 21.2 yards per catch. Hester is familiar with offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan as he started his career at Missouri when Hamdan was there.<\/p>\n

Moving to the “Y” it’s the one position where Kentucky has some returning players. When Ja’Mori Maclin <\/a>decided to come back for one more year it was a huge boost to the receiver room.<\/p>\n

Maclin started and finished strong but wasn’t featured much in the middle of the year. Of his 13 receptions, seven came in the last four games. He had four for 121 yards and two touchdowns in the season-ending loss to Louisville.<\/p>\n

Right behind Maclin is Fred Farrier.<\/a> The Frankfort native had 13 receptions last season for 126 yards.<\/p>\n

Even More Newcomers<\/h3>\n

The “Z” is likely manned by two more incoming transfers. Troy Stellato <\/a>comes to Kentucky from Clemson. During his time with the Tigers Stellato caught 65 passes for 600 yards and two touchdowns. He missed part of last season due to injury and saw his playing time decline. In 2023 he had 38 catches for 321 yards and a score.<\/p>\n

In addition to Stellato the Cats also picked up Kendrick Law<\/a> who transferred from from Alabama. During his three seasons with the Crimson Tide, he hauled in 33 passes for 314 yards and one score. Furthermore, Law is considered a top run-blocking receiver. It’s entirely possible we see a platoon system between the two.<\/p>\n

That’s part of the pass catchers for the Wildcats. As we continue with the Kentucky post-portal depth chart receivers let’s look to the tight ends.<\/p>\n

An Almost Entirely New Room<\/h3>\n

Much like the receivers, the Wildcats had a great deal of turnover at tight end.\u00a0Jordan Dingle<\/a> is now at South Carolina,\u00a0Khamari Anderson<\/a> at Arizona State, and Tanner LeMaster at Eastern Michigan. As a result, the Cats had to quickly rebuild through the portal.<\/p>\n

Josh Kattus<\/a>, a three-year starter, returns at one tight end position. In three years he’s caught 21 passes for 310 yards and four touchdowns. Right behind him on the depth chart is Henry Boyer, who comes from Illinois. Boyer caught three passes in three years with the Illini.<\/p>\n

The other tight end position is helmed by Willie Rodriguez. <\/a>While he only had five receptions he was very impressive at times in 2024.<\/p>\n

Incoming freshman Mikkel Skinner <\/a>is your backup to Rodriguez. Hailing from Greer, South Carolina Skinner was a huge recruiting win for Vince Marrow. Kentucky held off a late charge from the Gamecocks for the 214th-best player in the country and sixth-best tight end.<\/p>\n

With the Cats only having four scholarship tight ends on the roster look for them to add another player in the spring.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/h3>\n

One of the big things to watch during spring practice is how quickly this almost entirely new receiving group can gel with quarterback Zach Calzada<\/a>. Stoops and his staff have tons of talent, they just need to step up.<\/p>\n

Thanks for checking out our Kentucky post-portal depth chart receivers here at Last Word On College Football. Next time out we’ll look at the offensive and defensive lines.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Image: Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello everyone and welcome back to the third installment looking at the 2025 Wildcats. In case you missed them the first one featured the quarterbacks. The most recent featured the running backs. Today we’ll finish up the skill positions. We’ll start with the wideouts and finish with the tight ends with the Kentucky post-portal depth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":877,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[35625,8544,184,8284,140,33381,34196,34873,21,34874,24586,7850,34792,6769],"class_list":["post-72392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sec","tag-2025-kentucky-wildcats","tag-barion-brown","tag-cfb","tag-dane-key","tag-fbs","tag-jamori-maclin","tag-josh-kattus","tag-kendrick-law","tag-kentucky-wildcats","tag-mikkel-skinner","tag-ncaa-2","tag-recruiting-rankings","tag-tru-edwards","tag-zach-calzada"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/877"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72392"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72450,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72392\/revisions\/72450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}