Kentucky football has officially entered the part of the movie where the former guy is thriving somewhere else, and it makes you feel two things at once.
Pride… and pain.
Because Liam Coen isn’t just doing fine in the NFL. He took over as the Jags head coach from Doug Pederson. The Jags were 4-13 last year, this year with 1 week to go, it has been a historic turnaround. The Jags are 12-4 heading into week 18 with the 3rd best record in the AFC, behind the 13-3 Broncos and Patriots. According to Adam Schefter, no head coach has ever won 12 games in their first season as a head coach when the team won 4 or less the year before. (Other non-first time head coaches have done this, example Mike Vrabel with the Pats, but he was a head coach previously.)
Jaguars HC Liam Coen is now the only first-year head coach in NFL history to win 12-plus games after taking over a team that had four or fewer wins in the prior season. pic.twitter.com/KV4LcLPPJb
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 28, 2025
The NFL rarely turns around this fast, and that’s the point
The Jaguars are positioned as a legitimate Super Bowl contender late in the season, and the record is the kind of number that changes the way a city breathes.
And if you’re a Kentucky fan, you don’t need to be convinced that Coen can build an offense that works. You watched it. You watched the spacing look smarter, the quarterback look calmer, and the offense feel less like it was praying and more like it was planning.
That’s why this hits different: Coen’s success validates what Kentucky fans believed while it was happening.
Why Kentucky fans will always circle the same “what if”
The “what if” isn’t just that Coen left. It’s the sequence that followed.
Kentucky’s offense never found consistent footing after the Coen chapter ended the first time, and definitely not after the second. And when an offense starts cycling philosophies and coordinators, the roster gets stuck between styles, recruiting doesn’t align, development resets, and you end up with players who are talented but don’t look comfortable.
That’s the part Kentucky fans lived.
Now Mark Stoops is gone and Will Stein is starting over with a modern offensive blueprint. That’s the healthy part. But it doesn’t erase the sting of watching the former architect of your best offensive moments go do it on a bigger stage.
The most promising evidence of Coen’s genius is Trevor Lawrence. Under Coen, the former Clemson star is playing the best football of his life, throwing for 26 touchdowns and rushing for a career-high 80 yards and 9 TDs. Coen unlocked the potential that everyone knew was there but no one could find.
The Coen lesson for Will Stein is simple
Stein doesn’t need to imitate Coen. He needs to steal the principle that made Coen work: clarity.
Good offenses aren’t magic. They’re coherent. The quarterback knows where the answers are. Receivers know why routes are paired. Linemen know what the run game is trying to force.
Coen’s rise is a reminder that when the system is clean, the talent looks better. When the system is muddy, talent looks like inconsistency.
That’s why Kentucky hired Stein in the first place, and it’s why this “what if” story has value beyond nostalgia: it’s an example of what functional offensive structure looks like when it’s done at full speed.
Kentucky fans can be happy for Coen. They can also admit it hurts. But also they can feel a real hope for the future.
Both things can be true.