Kentucky football head coach Mark Stoops confirmed that four athletes are expected to miss either the entire 2024 football season or close to it on Friday.
Stoops listed senior defensive lineman Josaih Hayes, redshirt freshman defensive lineman Tavion Gadson, freshman defensive back Jiquavious Marshall and senior defensive lineman Darrion Henry-Young.
“These are going to be the full year or close to it,” Stoops said on media day, hours before news would break that the program would be forced to vacate the entire 2021 season thanks to NCAA sanctions.
Looking first at the line, Hayes is a former three-star prospect (247Sports) out of Horn Lake, Mississippi, and has been a career Wildcat.
Hayes has seen the field in 42 career games and started in two for the Cats in 2023 (Akron, Missouri) with four total starts. He totaled 24 tackles with 4.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks to go along with a pass break-up and quarterback hurry. Hayes, along with Gadson, sustained injuries in the Spring.
As for Gadson, the redshirt freshman from Savannah, Georgia, is a former three-star prospect (247Sports) that committed to UK in December of 2022. As a freshman he saw action in four games including the bowl game and was redshirted.
The final defensive lineman expected to miss the season was Henry-Young, a veteran transfer from Ohio State. A three-star prospect and transfer (247Sports), Henry-Young committed to the Buckeyes in June 2019 and was redshirted as a freshman.
He played in a total of four games for the Buckeyes with a sack and tackle for loss as a true freshman before entering the transfer portal and joining the Wildcats. With UK, he saw the field in 13 games over the past two seasons, logging 10 tackles, two tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, a forced fumble and a quarterback hurry in 2023 before his season was cut short by a season-ending injury.
As for the lone non-defensive lineman Stoops mentioned, Marshall — who goes by “Quavo” — is a defensive back (corner) from Macon, Georgia, and was rated as a three-star prospect (247Sports). A true freshman out of Westside High School, Marshall committed to Kentucky in June of 2023.
Despite four defensive names being considered done for the year, defensive coordinator Brad White did not indicate the injuries are reason for alarm during his portion of media day.
“Obviously when you lose a player, some other guys have to step up,” White said. “That’s the reality of the sport. We’ve dealt with it every year here.”
White also calmed the nerves of fans who may begin to worry seeing three players from the same position all being shut down.
“I feel really good,” White said. “If it was going to happen at a position that’s probably the one to happen at. I think the experience we have up there, defensive line wise, the quality of players we have, allows us to overcome that. We’ve got a bunch of guys who can play multiple spots across the front and I think that’s going to be good for us.”
In the meantime, Kentucky will continue to prepare for a week one contest against Southern Miss with back-to-back home stands against South Carolina and Georgia looming.
The Wildcats will kick off the 2024 season against the Golden Eagles on Saturday, August 31, from Kroger Field. Kick off is scheduled for 7:45 p.m. ET and is planned to stream live on the SEC Network.
