The highest-rated recruit of the Mark Stoops era is leaving Kentucky football after just one season.
Freshman offensive tackle Kiyaunta Goodwin entered the transfer portal Friday, UK Coach Mark Stoops confirmed to reporters after his team’s pre-Music City Bowl practice. Goodwin was rated as a five-star prospect out of Charleston High School in southern Indiana in the class of 2021 but played almost exclusively on the field goal unit as a freshman at UK.
Despite season-long struggles from UK’s offensive line, Kentucky coaches never felt comfortable throwing Goodwin into the fire, choosing instead only to use him on offense late in games where the outcome had already been decided.
“I wish it was, but it’s not a league, it’s not a position and you just go out and say, ‘As a five-star I can just go play,” offensive line coach Zach Yenser said of Goodwin in October. “There’s a lot that goes into it. Kiyaunta has all the talent in the world. He knows it. He’s going to be a really good football player here, and he is a good football player. He just has to develop and he has to have time to develop and see it. It’s part of it. There’s not a lot of true freshmen playing on the offensive line.”
While Goodwin did not show enough in practice to convince coaches he was ready to be a part of the regular offensive line rotation, Stoops and company still elected to play him in every game on special teams, meaning he would not preserve a season of eligibility by redshirting.
Asked about that decision in November, Stoops made it clear he and the staff still had high hopes for the 6-foot-8, 351-pound behemoth.
“We just felt like there would be a time when he would be ready to play. So, we want to continue to get him (ready),” Stoops said. “…You feel a guy like that is definitely going to be what you want him to be and if they are, they’re not going to be here for five years anyway.”
Yenser noted Goodwin needed particular work in mastering the snap count in Kentucky’s offense.
“When he knows what to do, he has a chance,” Yenser said.
If that development is to come for Goodwin, it will be somewhere else.
The decision to enter the portal comes one year and one day after a dramatic signing day that saw Goodwin first announce he was not ready to choose between Kentucky and Michigan State, only to actually sign with the Wildcats later in the afternoon while Stoops drug out a news conference while waiting for Goodwin’s official letter of intent to be processed, allowing UK’s coach to discuss the signing publicly.
Goodwin’s recruitment lasted more than four years as Kentucky first offered him a scholarship as a Louisville middle schooler. Goodwin first committed to UK in April 2021 but was open about considering other options in the weeks leading up to signing day.
Rivals.com rated Goodwin as a five-star prospect. The 247Sports Composite rated him as a four-star prospect but still ranked him as the best recruit to sign with UK in the Stoops era.
Even before Goodwin’s announcement, Kentucky had begun the process of rebuilding its much-maligned offensive line, which ranked 124th of 131 teams nationally in sacks allowed during the regular season.
Alabama’s Tanner Bowles and Northern Illinois’ Marques Cox have committed to UK as offensive line transfers. Cox is expected to start at left tackle, Goodwin’s position, for UK next season. The Wildcats could also return senior Kenneth Horsey for his extra season of eligibility. In that scenario Horsey would move from left tackle, where he played out of necessity in 2022, back to his natural guard position.
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