One quarter of the season is under the belt, and it’s time to look and see what we are actually made of. We’ve had our cupcake non-conference games, we beat our in-state rival, and we got beat in our SEC opener. Sound like a familiar story? Because it is! That’s right, despite the upset talk over Florida last week, we weren’t expected to win that game and we didn’t. We are sitting at 3-1 and if you had asked any pragmatic fan before the season where we would be at this point, they would have put us right here. I don’t think they could have predicted the offensive success we’ve had, but the educated fan would have known we had a good backfield. Let’s check out some of the things we are doing right, and how they have helped us win games thus far; but let’s also look at what we aren’t doing right, and what that means for the rest of the schedule.
Putting the ball in the endzone:
If you can’t tell, we have an offense. Despite the performance of Mike Hartline on Saturday, he’s still tied for 27th in passing yards on the year and still hovering around a 148 passer rating (for reference, USC’s Matt Barkley and Ohio State’s Terrell Pryor are 24th and 25th respectively). Not all defenses will be as good as Florida’s, and you have to expect that he’ll bounce back from that. Our running game ranks 28th in the nation, but Derrick Locke is a top-10 runner (8th in total rushing yards) and we have very solid running backs coming up in the program. We will be able to score against almost anyone we see this year.
We have Randall Cobb
While the average college football fan would not think that this would be a team-wide strong point, but to the learned UK fan, it is. Despite only ranking 88th in receiving, the impact of Cobb cannot be denied. He broke 1,000 career rushing yards for his career last week, and is 130 yards away from breaking that in receiving. Did I also mention he can kill a man from 200 yards away, with mind bullets? The simple fact is that while one man can’t win all the games for you, he can certainly pull out a couple. He hasn’t been asked to do as much this year because he doesn’t have to, othe rplayers are performing admirbly and taking the pressure off. But mark my words, one game this year he will be called upon to put the team on his shoulder and make a play, and he will.
What we aren’t doing right:
Keeping the ball out of the endzone
The Cats are ranked 74th in the country in points scored against, and it’s not getting any easier from here on out. Only compiling 9 sacks on the season (tied with Troy and Army), the defensive line has not shown up the way we had hoped. Senior leader DeQuin Evans only has 3 tackles and one sack so far, and while you can talk about double teams and blocking, the fact is that a defensive captain has to put up better numbers than that. Linebackers were a concern coming int the season, and with the exception of Danny “Club Hand” Trevathan, the position has been a revolving door trying to figure out who will step up. The secondary is not faring much better, pulling in only 3 interceptions on the year (tied for 56th in the nation with about 15 other teams). All the talk about Steve Brown being in the hot seat may be overblown, but the seat is above room temperature. Honestly, there’s no way Joker makes a mid-season move, the problem isn’t that bad, and Brown has opportunities to make it up. Bu the task will be difficult, which leads me to my next area for improvement
Stopping the spread
Surprise, anybody with a dual threat QB has torn us up. Besides that Burton kid scoring 5 TD’s on the EXACT SAME PLAY, quarterbacks with running ability have had field days against us. Despite all this team speed that we’ve accumulated over the last few years, we still get awestruck at the sight of a QB roaming outside the pocket. Whether it is a strategic flaw or our players haven’t caught on to the run option, it is unacceptable and has to be fixed if the Cats want success in the future. Auburn’ Cam Newton is 7th in the nation in rushing, and unless we want an absolute beat down in two weeks, we have to get it together.
Kentucky looks to get their conference aspirations back on track against a vulnerable but very desperate Ole Miss team that will be scratching and clawing for a win. if the defense can step up, we can still pull another 4 or 5 wins out of this season and call it a success. if the defense doesn’t…start pulling out your Nashville maps.
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