Mark Stoops and the Kentucky Wildcats suffered a big blow on Monday with the news that offensive coordinator Liam Coen is leaving Lexington for the NFL.

Coen will be the Los Angeles Rams' new offensive coordinator, replacing Kevin O'Donnell (who left LA after the Super Bowl to become the Minnesota Vikings' head coach).

Source: The Rams are hiring Kentucky OC Liam Coen as their new offensive coordinator, bringing Greg Olson back to the staff, and giving assistant head coach Thomas Brown more responsibility within the offense and team.

Sean McVay moving quick to put together his '22 staff.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) February 21, 2022

Coen only spent one season at Kentucky, but he made quite an impact in a short amount of time.

In 2020, the Wildcats had the No. 108 offense in the nation (21.8 points per game). In 2021, with Coen in charge of the offense, Kentucky had the No. 36 scoring offense in the nation (32.3 points per game).

Stoops will likely want to build on that improvement by hiring someone that has a similar offensive philosophy as Coen.

Three candidates immediately stick out to me as potential options.

Chris O'Hara — Minnesota Vikings QBs coach

Why not stick with the Sean McVay coaching tree? O'Hara didn't work with Coen in Los Angeles — he arrived after Coen left — but he coached under McVay, so the philosophies should be similar. O'Hara was an offensive assistant last year for the Rams. He was just hired as the Vikings' quarterbacks coach. Perhaps he'd like the opportunity to call plays at the college level with the hopes of landing an offensive coordinator job in the NFL.

Zac Robinson — Los Angeles Rams Asst. QBs coach

Robinson is a former Oklahoma State quarterback who has served as an offensive assistant for the Rams since 2019, which means he worked with Coen in LA in 2020. This is a hire that would definitely give the offense some continuity.

Cortez Hankton — LSU WRs coach/Pass game coordinator

The Rams were interested in hiring Hankton before landing on Coen. Hankton has been coaching in the SEC since 2015 (he's coached at Vanderbilt, Georgia, and now LSU), so he is already very familiar with the landscape of the conference. If an NFL team thinks he could be an offensive coordinator, then I'm sure he'd work out in college. Hankton obviously had some traits that McVay liked, which is why I think he could be a good option to replace Coen.

Featured image via Matt Stone/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK