All offseason long we've been speculating about Kentucky's offensive line and what the Big Blue Wall can do for a reboot in Zach Yenser's second year as the program's position coach for that unit.

At Media Day in Lexington on Friday head coach Mark Stoops provided an update which makes the rebuild a little more challenging.

Redshirt freshman offensive lineman and Kentucky legacy Nik Hall will miss the 2023 season due to injury, Stoops said.

Furthermore, Stoops said they're still working to determine if Hall's injury means he's out for the season or if it might be a career-ending issue. If the former he would likely apply for a medical redshirt for this season.

The son of Antonio Hall was a three-star recruit from Texas as a member of the Class of 2022 and he didn't see the field as a true freshman. But Hall was regarded as important depth piece and a developmental tackle who could have come up through the ranks and helped to solidify the unit in the longer-term.

Kentucky's difficulty at finding and developing high school tackle recruits has been well documented, and the revelation that Ohio State transfer Ben Christman is an offensive guard and not a flex guard/tackle means the Wildcats will once again be thin at tackle.

Fortunately for Kentucky, offensive coordinator Liam Coen did say that he was impressed and pleased with USC transfer Courtland Ford, who is battling it out with Jeremy Flax for the starting left tackle position. Those two and Marques Cox figure to play quite a bit for Kentucky at the tackle positions this season. Deondre Buford transferred to Cincinnati in the offseason.

Kentucky's hope for the offensive line is that bringing in the transfer tackles and moving others to more natural, better positions on the interior give the program its best shot for a total reset up front, which was badly needed after last year's very poor numbers in both the run game and protection.

The injury to Hall does not jeopardize that plan in the short term but it makes high school tackle recruiting even more important, where it was already a priority, and it gives Kentucky less margin for error in the case of injury or struggles to the remaining active players.