Kentucky set to hire new WR coach to join Mark Stoops football staff

The Kentucky Wildcats and head coach Mark Stoops lost their wide receivers coach to Nebraska a few weeks ago and has yet to replace Daikiel Shorts. They may have found the right coach to replace him in L'Damian Washington, according to reports from FootballScoop.com.

L'Damian Washington has served as a wide receivers coach at various college stops since 2021. He first started in the college ranks coaching the receivers at Southern and then was hired on the Oklahoma staff; finally, he went to USF, where he was all of last season. Now it looks like he will be serving along Stoops at Kentucky.

Washington is a former SEC receiver, he played at Missouri throughout his entire college career. He suffered turf toe his senior year and went undrafted in the NFL but eventually signed with the Dallas Cowboys in 2014. He bounced around the NFL for the next couple of years, playing for a variety of teams and even played some football in the CFL before turning to his coaching career.

He is known as a motivational speaker and a mentor of young men. His life before football was hard, and he is known for challenging players to rise up to the challenge of being a man and helping others out. As a coach at USF, his receivers had 2,722 yards in receptions and 16 touchdowns. He will be able to help solidify that group and will look to bring this younger crop to their potential. Kentucky has had big-time playmakers at receiver leave in the portal, including Barion Brown and Dane Key.

Stoops has had no other coaches leave this offseason, though there are rumors that Vince Marrow is mulling an opportunity to coach alongside Bill Belichick. This would be a big loss for Stoops as Marrow is his primary recruiter and may even take players with him. That would be a bigger replacement than Shorts.