Kentucky’s wide receiver room is being asked to grow up fast, but Joe Price III isn’t interested in making things easier just because the group is young.
Instead, the Wildcats’ first-year receivers coach is pushing his players to learn the offense from the inside out, move across multiple spots and be ready for whatever the staff needs. For Ja’Kayden Ferguson, that approach has already started to shape his role.
Ferguson and Price had a relationship long before they landed at Kentucky. Price recruited Ferguson hard while he was an assistant at UTSA, when Ferguson was at Thurgood Marshall High School in Missouri City, Texas. That connection helped set the stage for Ferguson’s return to UK after he originally committed to Kentucky, then flipped to Arkansas.
Last season, Ferguson spent his freshman year with the Razorbacks and appeared in six games, mostly on special teams. Now he’s trying to carve out a bigger role in Lexington, and that means being comfortable in more than one place.
“I like being inside a little bit more,” Ferguson said. “But whatever the team needs, you know, I’m here for them.”
That kind of versatility is exactly what Price is after. Kentucky’s 2026 roster lists 14 wide receivers, but only four - Nic Anderson, Shane Carr, Ashton Cozart and Spencer Leadbetter - are seniors or fifth-year players. Ferguson is one of four sophomores, and there are also five freshmen in the room.
Price said he is not using the group’s age as a reason to trim the playbook. At the same time, he’s not piling too much onto players before they’re ready.
His background helps explain the way he’s teaching. Price spent 10 years coaching Texas high school football and teaching, and he has a master’s degree in education leadership and administration. He also learned plenty from his father, Joe Price Jr., who coached high school football for decades.
That experience shows up in the way he talks about developing receivers.
“Probably over half the room can line up at multiple spots,” Price said. “I would say a third of the room that probably can line up at all three spots.”
The idea is to get players thinking about the offense as a whole instead of memorizing a fixed job tied to one alignment. Kentucky, under head coach Will Stein and offensive coordinator Joe Sloan, will use different formations and personnel groupings, so Price wants his receivers to be able to “plug and play wherever needed.”
He also said he doesn’t want to “halt anybody’s growth” by asking for too much too soon.
Ferguson is one of the clearest examples of that process. Price said the sophomore is being trained both inside and outside while taking on more responsibility. His year at Arkansas gave him SEC experience, and Price believes that foundation matters.
“He’s a physical player,” Price said. “He’s growing from (a standpoint of) us being able to put a lot on his plate in terms of what we do offensively.
I’m excited about his growth and his opportunities that’ll come. I think he’ll get a chance to play a little bit more than he did in the previous year.”
Ferguson’s own focus is simple: get on the field and help.
“I’m trying to get on the field, just trying to make some plays for the team,” Ferguson said. “Whatever I can do just for the team.”
He also pointed to fifth-year receiver Nic Anderson as someone worth following. Anderson arrives at Kentucky after one season at LSU and three at Oklahoma, and Ferguson sees him as a model.
“I like working with Nic,” Ferguson said. “He’s a good role model for me. He’s been in the game for a little bit, so he teaches me a lot day in and day out.”
Ferguson said the youth in the room has brought out a stronger edge in the group.
“Being a young group, I feel like we got a chip on our shoulder,” Ferguson said. “So, you know, we just put our head down to work, trying to put the Wildcats on standard.”
Price said he saw that response after last Saturday’s scrimmage ahead of Fan Day, which he and other UK coaches viewed as a disappointing outing in terms of readiness and consistency. The heat was a factor, and Price noted Kentucky could face similar conditions in its Sept. 5 season opener against Youngstown State, which starts at 1 p.m.
“So there were times in practice where I felt like we left some out there. We could have had more effort,” Price said. “And we challenged those guys over the weekend to come back (Monday) and just play as hard as you can for as long as you can.”
He said the group answered that challenge.
Price also said Kentucky has enough reps with different receivers that he can keep testing them physically and mentally as fatigue sets in. That, he said, is part of preparing them for sudden shifts in position, personnel and formation.
And when it comes to teaching, he leans on the skills he built in the classroom.
“We’re playing ‘Jeopardy!’ trying to get them to learn it - we’re doing quizzes, we’re doing walk-throughs,” he said. “We understand we’ve got a bunch of different types of learners in the room, so we’re trying, every way possible, to create a learning environment for those guys to be able to expand the menu.”
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