2026 Kentucky Wildcats

[Don Wassall]

Kentucky has started 11, 8, 3, 4, 3, 8, 8. 4, 5, 6, 5, 3, 4, 6, 4, 3, 4, 4, and 6 whites since 2005, with a few years missing. This year they hit an all-time low of just 2 Whites starters currently listed on OurLads’ depth chart.

Colton Price is the starting center, while Finnish born Olaus Alinen starts at left guard. Hayes Johnson is the backup center, with RT Max Anderson completing Kentucky’s tiny contingent of White linemen.

Freshman Mark Ponatoski is the third string quarterback. Henry Boyer is second on the depth chart at tight end.

There’s not a single White player on defense going three deep. By my cipherin’, there’s exactly 6 White players out of the top 63 listed on offense and defense. Thirty-six year-old Will Stein was hired as the Wildcats’ new head coach in December.

QB: Mark Ponatoski
C: Colton Price, Hayes Johnson
LG: Olaus Alinen
RT: Max Anderson
TE: Henry Boyer

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

Don, obviously this makes complete sense.

the state university’s football roster is just reflecting the state’s demographics since Kentucky’s population is *checks notes* nearly 82% White and less than 8% black … uh, WTF?!?

 

[Don Wassall]

Don, obviously this makes complete sense.

the state university’s football roster is just reflecting the state’s demographics since Kentucky’s population is *checks notes* nearly 82% White and less than 8% black … uh, WTF?!?

It's almost as bad at Tennessee, which is 77% White and 16% black. My three favorite Southern teams back in the '90s used to be Kentucky, Tennessee, and your old stomping grounds in Arkansas, which is 75% White and 15% black, because they used to play a fair amount of Whites including at WR and on defense. Their teams were never close to being as White as their percentage of the state population, but double digit White starters or fairly close to it was common. Matt Jones, the best running quarterback ever, is still one of my all-time favorite college players and Arkansas had other players to root for when Jones played and that was only 20 years ago.

I also used to watch LSU a lot as they always seemed to have a good White receiver or two going back to the days of Todd Kinchen and others.

 

[Bucky]

Kenfucky with 2 pale faced starters.. Their basketball team will likely start more!

 

[Leonardfan]

It's almost as bad at Tennessee, which is 77% White and 16% black. My three favorite Southern teams back in the '90s used to be Kentucky, Tennessee, and your old stomping grounds in Arkansas, which is 75% White and 15% black, because they used to play a fair amount of Whites including at WR and on defense. Their teams were never close to being as White as their percentage of the state population, but double digit White starters or fairly close to it was common. Matt Jones, the best running quarterback ever, is still one of my all-time favorite college players and Arkansas had other players to root for when Jones played and that was only 20 years ago.

I also used to watch LSU a lot as they always seemed to have a good White receiver or two going back to the days of Todd Kinchen and others.

Don, did most of the SEC teams drop below double digit White starters in the 90s from your recollection? Just wondering.

 

[Don Wassall]

Don, did most of the SEC teams drop below double digit White starters in the 90s from your recollection? Just wondering.

All of them had by the end of the '90s, and most if not all by the end of the '80s. But I won't claim to have a photographic memory from that long ago.

I'm probably like a lot of folks here in that as soon as I started noticing the Caste System and the replacement of Whites from many football positions in the early 1980s, I started immediately doing "racial head counts" as soon as I turned on a game. And I've been doing it automatically ever since and not just with football but also basketball, sprinting, baseball and any sporting event that isn't all White.

Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Vanderbilt usually had the "whitest" SEC teams, with a White QB, majority or predominantly White o-line, tight end, and one, two or three Whites on defense. There was still a small sprinkling of White WRs and DBs, but not many as the SEC helped cement in place the now long-standing template for the NFL's Caste System. So when I think of double digit White starters it's mainly one of those four teams that had double digit starters or close to it occasionally but not as a norm. The two Mississippi teams, Auburn and Alabama, Georgia, Florida and LSU were all getting very black by the onset of the 1990s.

In 1987 and '88, I accompanied David Duke to several campaign speaking events in Pennsylvania as he was the Populist Party's presidential candidate (different times for sure). David didn't want anything scheduled on a Saturday because he watched LSU every week, or at least when they were on TV. So a few of us went to a bar one Saturday with David Duke and watched LSU, and I was close to shocked as the Tigers had one of the blackest teams I had ever seen, just a couple of Whites on the o-line and a White QB, and here David Duke was a hard-core fan. They also had Sammy Martin, who was a lightning quick receiver and kick returner, but even back then was underused quite a bit before being totally screwed over by the NFL after being drafted by New England in the fourth round in '88. I was certainly surprised by Duke's dedication to LSU but then again he was more like a DWF than a CFer (to be clear David has never been a drinker) and still is when it comes to sports as I don't think he was ever interested in Caste Football over the years, just another of the many racially aware Whites who simply "ceded" sports to blacks without actually deep diving into the agendas at work.