KevinBarbay

Veteran offensive coach Kevin Barbay was added to the Kentucky Football staff as an offensive analyst in April of 2025.

Barbay came to Lexington after serving as Houston’s offensive coordinator in 2024. Prior to that, he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Mississippi State during the 2023 season.

Barbay has built a reputation for crafting high-powered offenses. During a five-year span coaching at Mississippi State (2023), Appalachian State (2022) and Central Michigan (2019-21), his teams recorded 31 games with 30 or more points and 19 games with at least 500 yards of total offense. During the 2022 and 2021 seasons, his offenses combined to average 448.01 yards per game and rank in the top 20 nationally.

In 2022, Barbay’s Appalachian State offense ranked in the top 25 nationally in multiple categories, including a scoring offense average of 34.9 points per game, a passer rating of 155.80 and a rushing offense average of 204.42 yards. His unit also ranked No. 8 nationally with 21 plays of 40 or more yards.

While at Central Michigan in 2021, Barbay oversaw an offense that averaged 440.7 yards per game and helped develop Lew Nichols III, who led the nation with 1,848 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns. He also played a key role in the development of two future NFL offensive linemen, Luke Goedeke and Bernhard Raimann, both were selected in the 2022 NFL Draft.

Barbay’s career spans multiple levels, with prior stops at Stephen F. Austin, Colorado State, Florida and Lamar. After two years as a wide receivers and special teams coach his alma mater, Lamar, from 2012-13, he spent the 2014 season as the director of player personnel at Colorado State. He then became the director of player development at Florida from 2015-17, helping the Gators win consecutive SEC East Division titles. In 2018, he got his first job as an offensive coordinator at Stephen F. Austin where his passing offense ranked 29th in the FCS.

Barbay, 42, is a native of Nederland, Texas.  He played quarterback at Grambling State under Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams where he helped the Tigers claim the 2002 Southwestern Athletic Conference title and a Black College national championship before transferring to Lamar. Barbay graduated from Lamar in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and fitness management and went on to earn a master’s degree in education-sport management from Baylor in 2007.

Barbay and his wife, Kacie, have three children; two daughters, Kynslie and Karoline, and a son Karson.

Kevin Barbay’s Coaching Career