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Earlier in the off-season, UK cornerback coach Derrick Ansley flirted with a job offer from Georgia to man new head coach Kirby Smart’s secondary. Mark Stoops fought hard to keep him at UK, and eventually offered him a promotion to become the co-defensive coordinator with D.J. Eliot.

For a while, all was well for the UK defense in terms of keeping the staff intact this off-season. With a huge salary boost for Ansley in his new gig, going from making $275,000 a year to $375,000, it was an investment UK athletics happily made.

Ansley is considered one of the up-and-coming coaching talents in the country, as he turned one of the worst secondaries in the country into a group that will likely compete as one of the best in the SEC for the coming years.

The problem with Ansley being one of the up-and-coming coaching talents is that other teams felt the same way about him, with one of those teams being none other than the University of Alabama.

As an Alabama native and former graduate assistant for the Tide, it was evident that even with the recent promotion, it would be tough for Stoops to keep Ansley from heading home and accepting the job offer from one of the top football programs in the nation.

It wasn’t long before news broke that Ansley had accepted the job offer, and was packing his bags to head to Alabama.

Though the loss hurts the Cats, as Ansley was a fantastic recruiter in his time here at UK, and obviously made a tremendous impact on the defensive backs as a whole, Stoops stepped right up to the plate and started his search for a replacement.

Rumors quickly spread that Super Bowl champion safety and future Hall of Famer Ed Reed would be contacted immediately for the job opening. Stoops coached Reed at the University of Miami as a defensive backs coach, which is where their history began. 

Reed is currently an assistant coach in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills, and when approached by Stoops for the job, decided he wanted to stay in the NFL to coach.

Despite Reed politely declining, Stoops has not given up hope for a home run hire. Rumors have swirled that former South Carolina defensive backs coach Grady Brown is interested, and may currently be in Lexington interviewing for the job according to Rivals’ Justin Rowland.

Brown is best known for his recruiting in the state of Florida, which is where Stoops has said he wants to recruit much harder. Though a hire isn’t expected as of yet, Brown is definitely a name to watch out for, and most certainly the favorite for the job at this point.

With a crop of young talent in the secondary for UK such as Chris Westry, Mike Edwards, Derrick Baity, and Darius West, whoever the new cornerbacks coach is will have a lot to work with when they get to Lexington. If the man for the job is Brown, UK fans can certainly breathe easy about the loss of Ansley.