LEXINGTON, Ky. — Liam Coen was gone from Kentucky football for less than a full year, but the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator is not the same coach who left Lexington last February.
Coen’s move to the Los Angeles Rams, where he served as Sean McVay’s offensive coordinator, did not go according to plan. The Rams’ attempt to defend their Super Bowl championship ended with a 5-12 record. Only five teams scored fewer touchdowns.
But the season was not a lost one for Coen.
“I wanted to continue to learn,” Coen said Thursday in his first news conference since being announced as the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator. “Not just from the experience of calling plays, but grow schematically, grow as a football coach. I feel like I’ve been able to do that over the past year even though the results weren’t what we were looking for.”
Kentucky fans will probably see parallels between the Wildcats’ 2022 offensive struggles and what happened in Los Angeles.
The Rams started 12 different offensive line combinations in the first 12 games due to injuries. Quarterback Matthew Stafford and star wide receiver Cooper Kupp had their seasons end early due to injuries.
“You scheme up all these great plays, but at the end of the day it truly is about the players,” Coen said. “Having to pivot and adjust to the type of players that we were playing with throughout the season. They weren’t our starters. They didn’t know all of our offensive scheme from A to Z. So, we needed to pivot at times.
“Now, was it always successful? No. Was the end result always what we were looking for? No, but it was about the process. The process was clean every week. At the end of the day, that’s really all you can hope for in terms of trying to create an environment and a standard to which these guys came to practice and meetings every single day with the right enthusiasm, right mindset because the culture was strong.”
Speculation had increased in recent weeks that McVay might take a hiatus from coaching, but Coen insisted his decision to return to Kentucky, where he found success as offensive coordinator in 2021, was not connected to whatever McVay decides to do next.
When McVay approached him with the offer to become the Rams’ offensive coordinator after Kevin O’Connell was hired as the Minnesota Vikings’ head coach following the Super Bowl, Coen felt the opportunity was too good to pass up. McVay calls offensive plays for the Rams, but other NFL franchises had raided his staff to make head coaching hires in recent years.
Coen quickly was reminded coaching in the NFL is different than college, though.
Stafford did not need life advice from his coach, only schematic adjustments and game planning. There was no hosting players for meals at his home with wife, Ashley, and 1-year-old son, Jackson.
“I missed helping when it was a little bit more than football,” Coen said.
After running his own offense at Kentucky, moving back to a situation where he did not call plays proved more challenging than he expected, too. Being on the other side of the country from his father, former Salve Regina University coach Tim Coen, added another stressor for a young family.
So when Stoops fired offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello on Nov. 29, Coen and Kentucky needed less than two weeks to agree to terms on a new three-year contract. The contract was signed Dec. 12, but both parties agreed to keep the news quiet until the conclusion of the NFL regular season.
Coen knows work is needed to replicate the offensive success he found at Kentucky in 2021.
Wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson, center Luke Fortner and right tackle Darrian Kinnard are already in the NFL. They will soon be joined by quarterback Will Levis and running back Chris Rodriguez.
There are new faces to build around, including North Carolina State quarterback transfer Devin Leary and freshmen wide receivers Barion Brown and Dane Key, but fixing an offensive line that ranked 126th of 131 teams nationally in sacks allowed is a top priority. Time will also be needed to gel with running backs coach Jay Boulware and offensive line coach Zach Yenser, who were not on the staff for Coen’s previous stint at Kentucky.
That’s where his season as Rams offensive coordinator could come in handy.
“The results weren’t always clean and what we wanted, but I think when you go through some of these things it gives you the perspective that it’s truly always about the players,” Coen said. “When you have great ones, usually good things happen. When you have injuries, great things don’t happen.”
Coen’s contract will pay him $1.7 million next season. That salary would have placed him in the top 10 of all college football assistant coaches last season, but the deal does not include a buyout to dissuade him from leaving for another job.
Coen knows rival programs will probably use his previous one-year stint at UK against him on the recruiting trail, trying to cast doubt in the minds of prospects about whether he will stick around in Lexington long enough to coach them, but by making the choice to leave the NFL to return to Lexington, he hopes he is sending a clear message that he is ready to “plant some roots.”
So, does Coen consider himself a college coach rather than an NFL one now?
“I don’t think either, to be honest,” he said. “... To say I’ll never go back to the NFL at some point in my career, I can’t say that. This is the pinnacle of our profession. To be choosing to leave is a difficult one to wrap your head around at times, but really, really thankful and think that this is the right path.”
