On Friday, Eric Wolford worked for Kentucky. On Saturday, he worked for Alabama.
The former Kentucky offensive line coach took the same job at Alabama over the weekend, and Kentucky is letting it be known it's not happy about the manner in which Wolford allegedly left.
On Friday of last week, Wolford was recruiting a late OL target for Kentucky and left to interview at Alabama
— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) February 1, 2022
On Saturday he took the job, never came back to Lexington to tell the team bye and was recruiting the same kid for Alabama
A pretty amazingly quick turnaround
Crazy. Confirming what @KySportsRadio is hearing on how OL coach Eric Wolford leaving for Bama went down, per a source:
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) February 1, 2022
“He went to interview and never came back.”
Wolford was recruiting a kid for UK, they thought, but turned out it was for Bama. No goodbye to his OL.
Jones and Tucker both cover Kentucky. We are getting one side of the story here.
I'm not trying to disparage Jones and Tucker, both are reporting what sources told them. But we don't know the circumstances in which Wolford was offered the job.
If Saban offered him the job on the condition he accept it right now... what's Wolford supposed to do? "Sorry, Coach, Kentucky might be mad at me."
Wolford has left jobs before -- formerly Youngstown State's head coach, Wolford spent four seasons coaching South Carolina's offensive line before taking the same job at Kentucky in 2020 -- and, presumably, didn't ghost his players then. Every assistant Saban hires leaves players behind and, presumably, ghosting the old place isn't a prerequisite for employment at Alabama.
Again, maybe the story we're being told is true. If so, that's bad form on Wolford's part.
But it's important to note we're only getting one side of the story.