Mikkel Skinner’s climb in Kentucky’s tight end room has been one of the more encouraging developments of the offseason, and the message from inside the program keeps getting louder: he’s not just hanging around, he’s making real progress.
That was the tone again Monday when tight ends coach Justin Burke talked about Skinner’s growth. The biggest step, Burke said, has been consistency.
"I think the biggest thing is the consistency," Burke said of where Skinner has grown the most. "It's being able to come to work every single day and know exactly what he's going to do.
He's one of those guys that's just- he's a young dude that comes to work and one of those deals for him is just next-play mentality, the focus. I think he's done a lot better with that.
"He's able to, when there's chaos or there's things going on or the look's not quite right or whatever, he's been able to adjust himself," Burke continued. "And then, when you can do that, the easy things for him are all the athletic things.
The catching, the running, all that kind of stuff. When you can play fast and free, because he knows his assignments, he's getting better with his assignments, I think those are the things that he's improved on."
That matters because Kentucky’s tight end room is not exactly begging for extra bodies. Willie Rodriguez is already being pushed to be the "best player on the field" every time he’s out there, and Henry Boyer is in the mix too. Skinner has had to keep working through that crowd rather than waiting for an opening to fall into his lap.
He’s done that while drawing steady praise all offseason. In the spring, Will Stein called him "an all-around player" and pointed to how many spots he can fill.
"Skinner's an all-around player," Stein said in the spring. "You can put him anywhere. You can put him in the backfield, at the hip of the tackle, out wide."
Ty Bryant also singled him out before the summer, saying Skinner was beginning to settle in after barely seeing the field last year.
"He (Skinner) was on the roster last year, didn't really see too much playing time, but, like, this year, I think he's coming out of his shell a little bit," Bryant said before the summer. "He's understanding the place.
He's getting better each and every day. He's a guy that's gonna be really nice for us."
Burke made clear Monday that the tight end usage in this offense is not going to be narrow. He said Kentucky wants to use multiple tight ends whenever it can, and those packages are very much part of the plan.
"We're going to be everywhere," Burke said. "I mean, we're going to put the best personnels we have out there. 13, 11, 10, 12, all those.
That's what Coach Stein's done, that's not a secret. If we can go and play with multiple guys out there, it lets us be in a lot of different formations, lets us be more multiple."
He also stressed that the job description for the position is broad. Kentucky wants tight ends who can line up all over the place and handle whatever role is asked of them.
Burke said that he needs his tight ends to "do everything" from play outside, play in the box, play on the ball, etc. They need to "know it all and be able to go execute it all at a high level."
With the season less than a month away, Skinner still has work to do before he can truly match the established names around him. But the offseason feedback has been hard to miss, and the support inside the room has been just as clear.
Boyer was the latest to make that point.
"Mikkel is going to be a really really good player," Boyer said. "He's a great dude, we all love him in the room.
He's an unbelievable athlete, he loves football, he cares about his teammates. I think just for him, being a young guy, continuing to just learn and keep going along.
He's going to be such a good player and I think everyone's really excited about him and we just want to see him do well."
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