Coen came back to Kentucky for the 2023 season after a year with the Los Angeles Rams.
Kentucky offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Liam Coen is reportedly once again flirting with a return to the NFL.
Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports reports the Chicago Bears will interview Coen for its vacant offensive coordinator position. Jones has not reported when that interview will occur.
Other candidates reported include Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and San Francisco 49ers passing game cordwainer Klint Kubiak.
The Bears are in the process of replacing Luke Getsy, who was fired after two seasons as Chicago’s play caller.
Coen has deep ties to the NFL.
The 38-year-old served as the Los Angeles Rams assistant wide receivers coach from 2018-19 and assistant quarterbacks coach in 2020.
He landed at Kentucky as offensive coordinator in 2021 and led the Cats’ offense to its most productive season of the Mark Stoops era, averaging 32.3 points per game and 425.2 yards per game. With Coen at the helm, quarterback Will Levis threw for 2,826 yards and 24 touchdowns while rushing for 376 yards and nine scores, which eventually helped him become the second round selection of the Tennessee Titans in the 2023 NFL Draft and Wan’Dale Robinson set the program’s single-season receiving yard (1,334) and reception (104) record.
On February 21, 2022, following the Rams’ win in Super Bowl LVI and Kevin O’Connell‘s departure to become the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, Coen left the Rams to serve as the team’s offensive coordinator.
Both the Rams’ offense under head coach Sean McVay and Coen and Kentucky’s offense under his replacement Rich Scangarello struggled in 2022, and following both team’s respective seasons, the two reunited with Coen agreeing to return as UK’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Kentucky’s offense improved from 2022 but still had its struggles in Coen’s second overall season with the team as it averaged 29.1 points per game and 339.5 yards per game.
Despite an up-and-down 2023 from the offense, the Wildcats have benefited in recruiting with Coen at the helm and are set to bring in Georgia transfer quarterback Brock Vandagriff, who committed to Kentucky before taking an official visit due to his relationship with the 38-year-old play-caller.
Thus, losing Coen would be a catastrophic loss for a Kentucky program that badly needs offensive stability.
Kentucky adds Tennessee OL transfer Gerald Mincey
Mincey was a regular starter for the Volunteers each of the past two seasons.
Kentucky has landed another much-needed piece out of the transfer portal.
The Wildcats received a commitment from Tennessee offensive line transfer Gerald Mincey during a visit to Lexington Friday night. Mincey, who entered the transfer portal on Jan. 4, was originally scheduled to visit Ole Miss this weekend.
Right tackle was one of the biggest remaining question marks for UK in 2024 and Mincey, who has over 1,000 career snaps under his belt with experience at both right and left tackle, certainly fits the bill.
Mincey is expected to compete with USC transfer Courtland Ford, who is in his second season at UK, for snaps at right tackle. The Cats return all of its offensive line rotation except for left guard Kenneth Horsey and right tackle Jeremy Flax to graduation.
This season, the massive 6-foot-6, 337-pound Mincey played 430 snaps at right tackle and 147 snaps at left tackle and took over the starting job on the left side of an offensive line that was named a Joe Moore Award semifinalist for a second straight season. He played rotational snaps off the bench at both tackle spots in the Virginia, Austin Peay and UTSA games in September before entering the starting lineup.
Mincey dealt with a knee injury that forced him out of a couple of games in October, and he played through it late in the year when he got three late-game snaps out of necessity in the loss to Georgia and rotated in at both right and left tackle in the regular-season finale against Vanderbilt.
According to Pro Football Focus, Mincey allowed 17 quarterback pressures (15 hurries, two sacks) on 281 pass-blocking snaps and had the fifth-highest run-blocking grade (58.9) among Tennessee offensive linemen who started multiple games.
Mincey started seven games at left tackle during the Vols’ 11-win season in 2022, including the Orange Bowl win over Clemson.
He is the 10th transfer addition via the portal this offseason for Kentucky, joining quarterbacks Brock Vandagriff (Georgia) and Beau Allen (Georgia Southern), running back Chip Trayanum (Ohio State), wide receivers Raymond Cottrell (Texas A&M), Ja’Mori Maclin (North Texas) and Fred Farrier (UAB), offensive lineman Jalen Farmer (Florida), linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson (Georgia) and defensive back Kristian Story (Alabama).
Mincey is no stranger to Kentucky. He committed to the Wildcats shortly after attending UK’s Junior Day in February of 2019. After decommitting from Kentucky in March of 2019, Mincey committed to Florida, where he spent two seasons prior to transferring to Tennessee before bringing his college career full circle by committing to UK once again.
Coming out of Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Mincey was rated as a 3-star prospect and a top-50 offensive tackle nationally in the class of 2020 by 247Sports.
