Kentucky Wildcats Football: Mark Stoops’s Monday Press Conference

Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

Q. Mark, would it be fair to say you are restless with these guys not (stepping up and taking ownership of the position)?

COACH STOOPS: Yes, I think we need to take one of these guys to take our team.

Q. What’s the biggest factor?

COACH STOOPS: Consistency, just playing. We will tailor our offense to do whatever we (have) to do to help us move the ball to win games. We just need the best player to come forward and be consistent and give us a chance to win.

Q. Mark, is there any way to prepare all these freshmen you’re playing for an SEC road game other than throw them out there and see what they can do?

COACH STOOPS: That’s it. Throw ’em to the wolves (laughter). No, they’ve been in some games now, and I thought our young wide receivers fought hard against a good secondary, but look at the things we did well, the fighting, the blocking, the things that we evaluate closely. I was pleased with the fight in our team, I really was. Hey, again, when you lose 24‑7, you can say it is what it is, but if it was the other way around, I would say the same thing. If I thought our team laid down or didn’t play well, I would tell you that as well.

Q. Mark, against Florida you saw a lot of three-step drops. I’m assuming it was to protect their QB. Do you anticipate more of that this week and how do you create pressure?

COACH STOOPS: They do a nice job. Of course they made it quarterback friendly in that game, but you can do that when you are as physical as they are. Like I said, going into that game everything was set up around that. If you’re not big and stout and can play certain games against them, they’ll embarrass you in a different way.
And it was frustrating for us. Anytime you have the long drive and keeping the ball away from us, it is frustrating, and that’s what they like to do, and the game goes quick that way. But they were helping the quarterback be successful, but he made some good plays, too, just like the third down he got hit, he took a tremendous shot, the guy was scot-free to him, and he took a shot and still delivered it.

Q. What can you do about that defensively?

COACH STOOPS: Of course we need to tighten up, everybody knows that, yeah, we could tighten up, and we could also give up 57‑yard touchdown passes, too. We’ll play as tight as we can play. It’s not like I forgot how to do that (laughter). Again, I don’t need to remind you, do I? Nobody in the country had more 3 and outs than us a year ago.

Q. (Question regarding South Carolina’s defense being better than Florida’s.)

COACH STOOPS: Well, that’s hard for me to say “better” they’re all good. I said last week the respect that I had for Florida’s defense with the defensive ends and the front four, those guys are really good players. You know, Jadeveon (Clowney) is arguably one of the best players at any position in the country and he gets an awful lot of attention and he deserves it.

Q. (Question regarding if you have to sell out to stop Clowney.)

COACH STOOPS: You know, you really do. I don’t know if Jadeveon has the stats that he had a year ago, I never compared them, but he gets an awful lot of attention and he deserves it. If you don’t know where he’s at and pay attention to him with doubles and slides and things like that, you can be hurt in a hurry.

Q. Coach, looking forward to this week, without giving us the game plan, how can you attack this South Carolina team and what can they expect to see from us?

COACH STOOPS: Well, we’ve got to execute routine plays, we’ve got to do a better job. Going back to last week we only had 7 possessions, three of them we had ’em off balance. We couldn’t finish the drives all the time. But we had some opportunities to score some points, and three of them we had ’em off balance, and we had three, three-and-outs that will hurt in you a game like that, and an interception, but that was after a play we had set up. You know, we missed our shot, on first down we missed our opportunity (on the throw-back pass play).
Then we forced it on second and threw the interception. So we gotta to continue to do what we need to do. Believe me, we look at ourselves as a staff, and we look at ourselves very critically and very closely, and it’s human nature and we go in there on Sunday and look at everything, and Neal picked it apart three, four times and I picked it apart several times and met with them, and I believe in what they’re doing, I really do. Sure, we got to find ways to move the ball and find what we can do well and continue to improve. That’s where that fine line comes in. Do you move forward and be stubborn and do what you do or find a way to move the ball to win games, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Q. (Question regarding offense line play vs. Florida.)

COACH STOOPS: Yeah, we had two plays that were absolutely unacceptable. I have been coaching defense a long time and I’ve never had two “free” one and we gave ’em two free sacks. Merry Christmas! (laughter) And that’s frustrating for me, as a defensive guy, because that never happens, but it did. One was on the tackle and one was on the line call. We’ll take responsibility for that and get it fixed.

Q. Are you concerned? Is that different from what you’ve seen from the offensive line all season?

COACH STOOPS: It is. One was a complete mental error that we shouldn’t have made and we haven’t made that mistake before and really both of them you could say were mental errors but one was on Darrian and one was on somebody else.

Q. (Question regarding Raymond Sanders being better than Jojo Kemp in certain areas.)

COACH STOOPS: You can see we’re doing different things with the perimeter run game and everything else. It’s just experience. Whether sometimes we’re reading things with that guy on who to block on the perimeter, things like that.

Q. What can Jojo do to get better?

COACH STOOPS: Just experience, just experience. They’re both good players, Raymond played very good, played a very good game. He ran the ball pretty well, he caught it, he had some key blocks that people underestimate that we had some good success with some of those things we were doing. Both guys need to play, again, in a perfect world we have more snaps and give Jojo the ball more and run it more successfully. That’s pretty easy to say.

Q. (Question regarding UK limiting Florida to three second-half points and if that gives UK momentum heading into Saturday’s game.)

COACH STOOPS: I said it last week and when they bring in extra tackles, three backs, they do a lot of different things that can put some stress on you and I thought we did some good things. I really do. There were some things that were very frustrating, that aren’t right, just leverage on the football, the long run is unacceptable, the TD run from the quarterback was unacceptable, we had it stopped. If we take care of leverage on the ball it’s a no‑gain and we didn’t and they scored. Keep on working and getting better.