CJ Conrad takes a backseat to no one in the category of who has had the most eventful past two months.
On May 20, the former Kentucky Wildcats football standout married ex-UK gymnast Katie Stuart in a wedding ceremony in her hometown of Parkland, Fla.
Then, last week, Conrad started a new job as Eastern Kentucky University tight ends coach. The opportunity came after a vacancy on the EKU coaching staff occurred abnormally late in the offseason. That led to Colonels Coach Walt Wells plucking Conrad from his previous role as a quality control offensive aide for Mark Stoops at UK.
“It’s unbelievable,” Conrad said Friday morning via the phone. “It’s been a crazy 60 days.”
There are exactly 27.2 miles separating UK’s Kroger Field from EKU’s CG Bank Field at Roy Kidd Stadium. That means Conrad has achieved a college coaching rarity — he has been able to switch employers without having to move.
“My wife’s life can stay the same,” Conrad said. “That’s the nice part.”
Other than the months in 2019 and 2020 he spent trying to make the New York Giants roster as an undrafted free agent, Conrad, 27, had been associated with the Kentucky football program since the fall of 2015.
A 6-foot-5, 242-pound tight end from LaGrange, Ohio, Conrad became one of the pillars of the Stoops-era revival of UK’s football fortunes.
As a true freshman in 2015, Conrad caught his first UK touchdown pass from Patrick Towles in a 21-13 Kentucky upset of No. 25 Missouri — the first victory over a ranked opponent for Stoops as top Cat.
The most memorable catch of the 80 career receptions Conrad recorded as a Wildcat came three seasons later at Mizzou. His two-yard TD reception from Terry Wilson on an untimed down capped Kentucky’s unlikely comeback from 14-3 down inside the final 5:30 to a 15-14 win over Missouri. That victory put the Wildcats into a winner-take-all showdown with Georgia for the 2018 SEC East championship the following week (where Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs took all).
Throughout Conrad’s UK playing career, Stoops often praised the tight end for his leadership capabilities. So it was not a surprise after Conrad’s NFL playing dreams ended that he soon was back at Kentucky apprenticing to become a coach.
“I got cut (by the Giants on) April 27, 2020,” Conrad said. “I started my first day of coaching at Kentucky July 5th of 2020.”
The esteem Conrad earned as a graduate assistant while helping his old position coach, Vince Marrow, teach the UK tight ends was shown this past winter. After Conrad’s stint as a G.A. ended, Stoops promoted him into an offensive quality control position.
“That’s what I was planning on doing this season, being a quality control coach for the Kentucky offense with Liam (Coen, the UK offensive coordinator) and Vince,” Conrad said. “And then I got a call.”
Eastern Kentucky head man Walt Wells spent two seasons, 2018 and 2019, as a quality control coach at Kentucky. He knew Conrad as a player from the 2018 season.
“He was smart, intelligent and just a good all-around football player,” Wells recalled of Conrad. “I didn’t know (then) if he wanted to coach … But I knew when he went into coaching, that he would be a good one.”
When Wells found himself in the market for tight ends coach earlier this month, he reached out to Stoops and Marrow about Conrad. “They couldn’t rave enough about him,” Wells said.
For Conrad, who ultimately aspires to be a college head coach, a chance to lead his own tight ends room and launch his full-time, on-the-field coaching career at a tradition-rich FCS program like EKU was the obvious professional move. Yet cutting ties with the Kentucky football program that he had so long been a part of was tough.
“It was bittersweet. I’ve been with Coach Stoops and Vince for a long time,” Conrad said. “But they agreed, felt like (taking the Eastern job) was the best decision for my career and my family.”
In the week Conrad has been a Colonel, he has watched enough video to get excited about the prospect of the gunslinging, veteran EKU QB Parker McKinney (3,956 passing yards in 2022 with 33 touchdown passes) throwing to the tight ends he will be coaching.
“When I watched the tape, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this quarterback can play, man. He throws the rock,’” Conrad said.
Like new EKU quarterbacks coach Maxwell Smith, another ex-Kentucky Wildcats football starter, Conrad will return on Sept. 9 to the stadium where he competed as a collegian when Eastern Kentucky plays at Kentucky.
“The first thing that comes to mind, for EKU and my tight ends, I’m excited for them to get to play a SEC team and compete,” CJ Conrad said of his pending return to Kroger Field. ”But it’s definitely going to be different. As long as I have been at Kentucky, I’ve never been in the visiting locker room.”
