Kentucky Wildcats Picked to Dominate SEC while Sporting News defends John Calipari against Kelly Oubre, Sr.
By Wayne
Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports
In this meat grinder of a schedule, Mark Stoops has to prep his team for yet another hard hitting affair on Saturday with #1 Alabama Crimson Tide coming up. The good news for the good guys is that we seem to have a starting QB growing into that position on both leadership and ability levels. I can honestly say that’s not something we have seen since Andre Woodson laced them up a few years back. When the season began, I didn’t expect to say that about Jalen Whitlow but here we are. Amazing what a fourth quarter comeback will do to everyone’s confidence.
"Jalen Whitlow was a central figure as UK scored 21 fourth-quarter points, repaying Stoops for sticking with him at quarterback throughout. Whitlow played the best game of his career last Saturday, completing 17-of-24 passes for 178 yards, running for 69 yards and accounting for three total touchdowns. Stoops attributes his emergence to a couple factors. “I think some of it was confidence,” Stoops said. “You could see he was a little bit uneasy, and he’s working his way through that. I think, like I’ve said many times, it has to do with a lot of players around him. You gotta have good players around him making plays. A lot of times, quarterbacks look good because of the other players around them, and I think we’re improving in that area as well.” Brown estimated that Whitlow got 65-70 percent of the snaps in practice last week and even more this week and UK’s offensive coordinator agrees that assuming a more regular role has helped the sophomore. “He’s learning,” Neal Brown said. “It’s an ongoing process. He’s learning how to prepare week in and week out. But as far as, I think his personality’s coming forward a little bit more maybe. That would be fair to say as far as speaking up.” Whitlow, meanwhile, insists he has tried to approach his preparation the same way. He still treats practice as a competition, and so does Maxwell Smith. “It’s always competition, so you gotta try to be at your best because you don’t want to go through what you’ve been through earlier,” Whitlow said. “You just try to prepare and try to stay on top of your game.”"
Nick Saban is well aware they have a game this Saturday up here in the Bluegrass and has been preaching to his kids that they can’t underestimate us. Whether that’ll stick, who knows. They’re kids. But Saban has had his “coach speak” in full force leading up to the game.
"Alabama is the defending national champion, ranked No. 1 and unbeaten this season. Kentucky is coming off a 2-10 season, only 1-4 this year and at the start of a rebuilding process for new coach Mark Stoops. But Alabama coach Nick Saban is not underestimating UK even though Alabama is a 27-point favorite for Saturday night’s game. “We expect this to be a difficult game,” Saban said. “I think our players need to prepare for this team with a lot of respect, and I think our players understand how difficult it is to play on the road in our league.”"
Now stop me if you’ve heard this one before but former Kentucky Wildcats Danny Trevathan has been making a huge splash with the Denver Broncos this season while filling in for Von Miller. So big, in fact, that he is the second leading tackler on the team and had a huge interception Monday night against the Cowboys that set up the winning FG. So spectacular was his interception that ESPN’s Sport Science put together a video analysis of what happened to make it possible.