Done deal: Kentucky Has Signed Tennessee Veteran …

Kentucky has landed another much-needed piece out of the transfer portal.

The Wildcats received a commitment from Tennessee offensive line transfer Gerald Mincey during a visit to Lexington Friday night. Mincey, who entered the transfer portal on Jan. 4, was originally scheduled to visit Ole Miss this weekend.

Right tackle was one of the biggest remaining question marks for UK in 2024 and Mincey, who has over 1,000 career snaps under his belt with experience at both right and left tackle, certainly fits the bill.

Mincey is expected to compete with USC transfer Courtland Ford, who is in his second season at UK, for snaps at right tackle. The Cats return all of its offensive line rotation except for left guard

and right tackle Jeremy Flax to graduation.

This season, the massive 6-foot-6, 337-pound Mincey played 430 snaps at right tackle and 147 snaps at left tackle and took over the starting job on the left side of an offensive line that was named a Joe Moore Award semifinalist for a second straight season. He played rotational snaps off the bench at both tackle spots in the Virginia, Austin Peay and UTSA games in September before entering the starting lineup.

Mincey dealt with a knee injury that forced him out of a couple of games in October, and he played through it late in the year when he got three late-game snaps out of necessity in the loss to Georgia and rotated in at both right and left tackle in the regular-season finale against Vanderbilt.

According to Pro Football Focus, Mincey allowed 17 quarterback pressures (15 hurries, two sacks) on 281 pass-blocking snaps and had the fifth-highest run-blocking grade (58.9) among Tennessee offensive linemen who started multiple games.

Mincey started seven games at left tackle during the Vols’ 11-win season in 2022, including the Orange Bowl win over Clemson.

He is the 10th transfer addition via the portal this offseason for Kentucky, joining quarterbacks Brock Vandagriff (Georgia) and Beau Allen (Georgia Southern), running back Chip Trayanum (Ohio State), wide receivers Raymond Cottrell (Texas A&M), Ja’Mori Maclin(North Texas) and Fred Farrier (UAB), offensive lineman Jalen Farmer (Florida), linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson (Georgia) and defensive back Kristian Story (Alabama).

Prior to Mincey’s commitment, Kentucky’s 2024 transfer class was ranked No. 18 nationally and sixth in the SEC by 247Sports.

Mincey is no stranger to Kentucky. He committed to the Wildcats shortly after attending UK’s Junior Day in February of 2019. After decommitting from Kentucky in March of 2019, Mincey committed to Florida, where he spent two seasons prior to transferring to Tennessee before bringing his college career full circle by committing to UK once again.

Coming out of Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Mincey was rated as a 3-star prospect and a top-50 offensive tackle nationally in the class of 2020 by 247Sports.