Former local high school star proving to be ‘old school throwback’ after transferring to UK

Of Kentucky football’s 12 incoming transfers , nine are expected to immediately step into the starting lineup when healthy this fall.

But it is one of the three transfers projected to open the season as a backup who might have garnered the most praise during preseason camp.

“Fred (Farrier) has had a great fall camp,” quarterback Brock Vandagriff said. “Coach (Bush) Hamdan actually mentioned him after I think it was the third or fourth practice. Just basically saying, like, we need more guys like Fred. He’s a dude that comes in, he does his job, doesn’t really say too much. Great kid off the field, great kid on the field, a really good dude you want in the locker room.”

Farrier, the former Franklin County High School star, arrived at UK as a transfer from UAB without statistics that would pop off the page.

He started seven of 27 appearances across three years at UAB, totaling 29 catches for 389 yards and two touchdowns. Last season, he caught 18 passes for 266 yards and one touchdown.

By the time Kentucky showed interest in Farrier in the transfer portal he had already lined up visits to smaller programs, but the chance to play for his home-state school was too appealing to pass up, even if it was clear he was being added as a depth piece.

UK has struggled to keep its backup receivers on the roster since Barion Brown and Dane Key emerged as starters as freshmen in 2022. The mass exodus of players searching for featured roles elsewhere left the Wildcats with just four returning scholarship wide receivers from 2023.

North Texas transfer Ja’Mori Maclin , one of 25 players to record at least 1,000 receiving yards last season, was added as a starter in the slot. Stoops and company added two high school receivers in the 2024 class, but more experienced depth was needed.

“Just being able to play for the home state I grew up in, that means a lot already,” Farrier said in January after enrolling at UK. “And then knowing the people on the team and the coaches and the culture that’s here at the school, that just means a lot as well.”

Any thought Farrier was joining the roster simply to help coaches run a practice with enough receivers was quickly dispelled this month.

Farrier was the star of UK’s Fan Day practice with multiple deep catches on passes from backup quarterback Gavin Wimsatt. Over the next two weeks, multiple defensive players singled him out as one of the most difficult matchups in camp.

“You’re not going to hear too much from him,” wide receivers coach Daikiel Shorts said. “He might not speak the whole practice, he might not speak in meetings, but he comes out here, he wants his teammates to do well, one, and then he just works his butt off.

“Every rep is like his last rep. He wants to make a play, whether it’s a block, whether it’s a catch. He just wants to do right all the time. And he’s doing a really good job on special teams as well.”

The impressive camp is the latest turn in an unlikely path to the SEC for Farrier.

As a senior at Franklin County, Farrier totaled 58 catches for 1,010 yards and 12 touchdowns, but he did not receive any Power Five scholarship offers.

There was only brief communication with Kentucky coaches via Twitter in high school. He never even took a visit to UK’s campus.

At UAB, Farrier played for three different head coaches in three seasons. Two weeks after entering the transfer portal in December, Farrier announced his first scholarship offer, from former UK player and assistant coach Jon Sumrall at Tulane. Four days later, on Jan. 3, Kentucky finally offered the scholarship it did not in high school.

“I work for everything I ever got, especially with my football career,” Farrier said.

That attitude has been apparent since Farrier arrived in Lexington.

“There’s so many distractions these days,” Hamdan, UK’s offensive coordinator, said. “There’s NIL. There’s, ‘Am I the starter?’ There’s this and that. You’ve still kind of got a couple of old school throwback guys, whether it’s by choice or not, who just come to work every day. I’d say he’s one of those guys.”

At 6-foot-1, 182 pounds, Farrier figures to fill a variety of roles for Kentucky this fall. And an injury to standout freshman Hardley Gilmore has dropped the primary wide receiver rotation to just five players. Farrier will join with sophomore Anthony Brown-Stephens as the depth behind Brown, Key and Maclin.

Playing in front of his family and friends in Kroger Field will bring a new set of pressures for Farrier, but do not expect him to shy from the moment.

One of Farrier’s best games at UAB came at Georgia last season with two catches for 53 yards. He tallied two catches for 12 yards at LSU in 2022.

“I knew I could play in this type of platform, environment,” Farrier said.

It would be easy to write the narrative that Farrier is motivated by the lack of offers in high school, but he pushes back at that suggestion.

Yes, there is the proverbial chip on his shoulder, but there is more.

“You could say that, but when I play, I don’t really necessarily think of that,” he said. “I just always think of winning. What can I do on this rep to win? Win my one-on-one rep? So that’s the best way to put it.”

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