{"id":224078,"date":"2025-07-21T08:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/224078\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T08:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:09:11","slug":"i-dont-think-he-really-wanted-to-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/224078\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I don’t think he really wanted to leave’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The start of Hardley Gilmore<\/a>\u2018s college career has certainly been unique. <\/p>\n

One of the youngest players in all of college football as a true freshman in 2024, the 6-foot-1 wide receiver came to Kentucky as a highly ranked high school recruit out of Florida. A broken collarbone in his first offseason forced him to miss the Wildcats\u2019 first five games, but Gilmore returned halfway through the season and played in the final seven. He totaled 153 receiving yards and a touchdown, averaging 25.5 yards per catch. <\/p>\n

Now with some continuity at offensive coordinator, Gilmore was expected to be a pivotal piece to the future of the program \u2014 until he shockingly entered his name into the transfer portal in December and soon committed to Nebraska, where he joined Dane Key<\/a> and former UK wide receiver coach Daikiel Shorts<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Months went by, everyone moving on from Gilmore\u2019s time in Lexington. However, Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule<\/a> announced in early April that Gilmore was dismissed from the program for reasons he did not get into. Less than two weeks later, Gilmore was back on UK\u2019s campus and is now preparing for his sophomore season. <\/p>\n

\u201cHardley is a great young man,\u201d Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops<\/a> told local reporters at SEC Media Days on Thursday. \u201cI don\u2019t want to speak for him, I think he\u2019s on the record of saying I don\u2019t think he really wanted to leave. There\u2019s sometimes things that happen that I don\u2019t need to get into and speak for him, but I\u2019ve always had a strong relationship with Hardley and he has with our staff, and he\u2019s a great young man that\u2019s young and that\u2019s continuing to mature, and continuing to get better. Just like all our players in our program to some level, right? <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re glad to have him. He came back and fit right in and is trying to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

From strictly a football perspective, having Gilmore back in the blue and white is a positive. He\u2019s still very young but is developing his game at a fast rate. Kentucky brought in another new wide receivers coach, L\u2019Damian Washington<\/a>, and some talented pass-catching pieces from the portal. Gilmore could play a significant role as one of the top wide receivers on the depth chart<\/a> in 2025 alongside quarterback Zach Calzada<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The start of Hardley Gilmore\u2018s college career has certainly been unique. One of the youngest players in all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,46485],"class_list":{"0":"post-224078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-hardley-gilmore-24-pahokee"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114890209000409531","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}