The best things about Kentucky in 2025 ...Middle East

There’s always a chance that 2024 was a one-off for Kentucky.

At this stage of his career, Mark Stoops has earned the right to project such a thing. After all, he’s entering Year 13 at Kentucky, and he’ll do so as the program’s all-time leader in wins. After 8 consecutive bowl berths, that streak finally came to an end in 2024. Outside of a stunning win at Playoff-hopeful Ole Miss, the positives were hard to come by. UK never found its quarterback or its offensive identity. As a result, it felt like a lost season for Stoops and Co.

But that’s in the past. How imminent is improvement? That depends. How many things does UK have working in its favor? And will doubling down on last year’s offensive coordinator prove wise or costly? Let’s talk about it.

There’s no better time to be positive than talkin’ season. That’s what I always say. Each of the next 16 days, we’ll look at the best things about each SEC team. This daily series will align with the SEC Network Takeover, which runs from Saturday, June 28 until July 13, AKA just before talkin’ season officially kicks off at SEC Media Days on July 14.

Mark your calendars! ?️The @SECNetwork Takeover returns June 28-July 13Each of the 16 @SEC schools will takeover the network for a day of school-centric programming with 24 hours of the year's best momentsMore on #SECNTakeover ➡️ t.co/LJHK4ml6wk pic.twitter.com/WScfaJo7Tp

For those keeping track at home, that’s alphabetical order.

So far, here are the teams that we’ve done:

Today, we’ll continue with the best things about Kentucky in 2025:

Best offensive player: Dante Dowdell, RB

Kentucky has been at its best when the offense is built around a tough, battering ram of a running back. The 6-2, 225-pound Dowdell won’t be Benny Snell or Chris Rodriguez 2.0, but he could still be plenty effective in what figures to be a run-first offense. At Nebraska, he only played 30 snaps 3 times last year, yet he finished the season tied for 5th in the Big Ten with 12 rushing touchdowns. He only had 4 runs that went for 15 yards, and he’s not going to be a major boost in the passing game, but that’s fine. Dowdell can still be exactly what Kentucky needs.

In 2024, UK was dead last in the SEC with a 33.8% 3rd-down conversion rate. That number actually dipped to 30% vs. Power Conference competition with just 34 3rd-down conversions in those 9 contests. Who led the Big Ten with 24 conversions on 3rd-and-3 or less? Dowdell. If the Kentucky offense is going to get back to staying on schedule and getting behind the Big Blue Wall, Dowdell is going to be set up to become extremely valuable.

Best defensive player: Alex Afari Jr., LB

Lost in the shuffle of a 4-win season was the emergence of Afari, who switched from defensive back to inside linebacker in Year 3 in Lexington. It allowed Afari to become the most consistent playmaker. Not only was he 3rd on the team with 62 tackles, but he led the Cats with 11 tackles for loss. That was in a year in which Maxwell Hairston and Deone Walker both dealt with injuries in their pre-draft seasons. Kentucky still finished with a top 1/4 scoring defense in FBS, thanks in large part to Afari’s efforts.

Afari is one of the only players left on that roster who experienced UK’s brief stay as a top-10 team in 2022. In fact, he and tight end Josh Kattus are the lone players from that 2022 class who are still on the team (H/T Adam Luckett). In the post-Josh Allen era (2019-present), Kentucky’s lone first-team All-SEC selection on the defensive side was Josh Paschal in 2021. Can Afari help turn that trend around in Year 4 in the system? That would have a major say in any sort of bounce-back season.

Best freshman: Martels Carter Jr., S

Let’s use some context clues to break down Carter. He was the No. 2 recruit in the state of Kentucky, and he stuck with his commitment to the Cats amid a brutal 2024 season even though he had offers from schools like Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma and Oregon, to name a few. Carter was a 2-way star in high school at wide receiver and defensive back, which culminated with a brilliant performance in the Kentucky 4A State Championship victory at Kroger Field. During that time and in the spring months after Carter arrived on campus, Kentucky didn’t sign a safety transfer in the portal, and the lack of proven weapons at receiver are limited.

What am I saying? Carter went to Kentucky to contribute immediately in some way. Maybe that means he starts on the 2-deep and flashes some play-making ability at receiver in a nonconference game, or perhaps Carter’s contributions will be felt against an SEC schedule that’s among the more daunting in the conference (more on that in a bit). Whatever the case, I can’t help but think that Kentucky will want to play Carter immediately instead of making a prized in-state recruit ride the bench and risk the possibility that he hits the portal after 1 year in Lexington.

Best game: Week 2, Ole Miss vs. Kentucky

Hey, it was a thriller in Oxford last year. For whatever reason, the Stoops defense had Ole Miss in a blender. This will be the first career road start for Austin Simmons and a new-look Ole Miss offense. Could he be put in a blender, too? Don’t rule that out. In the Stoops era, all 4 games vs. Ole Miss were decided by 3 points or less, 3 of which happened during Lane Kiffin‘s tenure in Oxford.

Also, UK has lost 8 consecutive Power Conference games at Kroger Field. The last time that the Cats won a Power Conference game in front of the home fans was when Ray Davis ran for roughly 53 million yards in that win against Florida in Sept. 2023. That’s 1 of 3 Power Conference home wins that UK has in the last 3 seasons. Turning around that 3-11 mark in 2025 would be as ideal of a development as any for Stoops and Co.

Best reason for improvement: Mark Stoops has too much pride for a 2024 repeat … I think?

Perhaps it’s ambitious to think that improvement is imminent on the heels of UK’s worst season in over a decade. Not only did 2024 earn that dubious distinction of being the worst overall season since Year 1 of the Stoops era, but it was also the first time since then that Kentucky failed to win multiple SEC games. Mind you, that was on the heels of 8 consecutive seasons with at least 3 SEC wins and that aforementioned bowl streak. Last year’s shortcomings have to be eating at Stoops. Navigating an SEC slate that starts with 5 games against teams that won at least 9 games last year will let us know early on if Kentucky has put 2024 in the rearview mirror.

It’s been a strange offseason with Lexington from a personnel standpoint, like we saw with the decision to run it back with Bush Hamdan as OC, as well as the stunning summer departure of Day 1 Stoops assistant Vince Marrow. But the positive was that UK signed the No. 10 transfer portal class, according to 247Sports. That was largely based on the 19 transfers that UK signed in the post-regular season window, wherein there was a clear sense of urgency.

Will there be a sense of urgency on the offensive side of the ball instead of whatever we watched in 2025? That remains to be seen with Zach Calzada, who is hoping to find a home in his 3rd SEC school and 4th school overall. The passing game can’t be as bad as it was last year … right? UK has worked around lackluster passing attacks at times during the Stoops era, but a significant improvement in the win column will require more competent quarterback play and some sort of offensive identity.

UK’s climb out of the SEC basement is Stoops toughest task since his initial rebuild 12 years ago. Now is as good a time as ever to get back to that blue-collar mentality that fueled that initial turnaround.

The best things about Kentucky in 2025 Saturday Down South.

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