Kentucky Football Fan Day Wrap Up

It was a fun filled day for many Kentucky Football fans. Fathers and mothers with their children tossing football, getting to meet all the players. Fans got a chance to see how this team will look. Players got a chance to have a watered down version of what it would be like to have fans cheering while they’re making plays. Lots of things to be excited about, also lots of things to work on.

Fans lined up early wrapped around the Nutter Field House. Everyone decked out in their Kentucky Blue waiting to see their Football Wildcats.

Off to the left side of this picture, fans got to see the renovations going on with Commonwealth Stadium while they waited to get in, lots of things happening with the renovation by the looks of it yesterday. 9 o clock hit and the fans filed into the Nutter Field House to see the players.

On the inside the players were sat down, split up into their own sections, Special Teams, Running Backs and so on. The biggest lines for autographs were for the Quarterbacks and for Mark Stoops, but the biggest line the whole morning was for the Defensive Line. Fans wanted to make sure they got Bud Dupree, Za’Darius Smith and Matt Elam’s autographs along with other players of course.

Fans even got to meet Neal Brown and DJ Elliot who were signing autographs together. There was a Mitch Barnhart sighting with his newly born grandson Cooper.

After the player autograph session everyone scurried next door to Commonwealth Stadium for the teams practice.

As I said before, there were lots of things to be excited about, the quarterbacks, watching Dupree and Smith blow by people, watching Matt Elam plug holes, running backs bursting through making huge plays and much more. Also, like I said before, there were lots of things to work on, the quarterbacks would make a good throw, and then completely overthrow the next pass. Stoops mentioned these things need to change and reminded everyone, the first game is 3 weeks away.

Some things to take away from the practice were the running game. The best looking running back was probably Braylon Heard. They all looked good though as Mikel Horton hit holes and had a break away run and was also busting through tackles. Stanley “Boom” Williams was noticeably short which helped his case tremendously, you couldn’t see the ball being handed to him or where he was until 4 seconds after he got the ball and was already down the field. Heard certainly looks like he has the whole package and looks as if he might be the starting running back.

Even though the wide receivers on the team are very good and made some spectacular catches, there still seemed like there was something lacking. Just need more people.

Matt Elam is a handful as a one-on-one assignment, but he seemed to be pretty ineffective when he was engaged with two people, but he is only a freshman. Imagine what he’ll look like and play like when he’s a junior and senior, wow, big things are going to happen with him.

Bud Dupree and Za’Darius Smith looked great, brushing the offensive line players and making plays. That, I’m sure will help them later on because on the sidelines were scouts from the Cleveland Browns and the Atlanta Falcons.

All in all, I think fan were satisfied with what they saw from the team, and so was Mark Stoops. Stoops wants to see some major improvements in being in the right place at the right time on defense, making the right choices and executing on offense and ultimately just being consistent on both sides, following up a good play with another good play. The team looked good yesterday but needs to improve for their first game that’s in 3 weeks against UT Martin on August 30th at noon. See you at Commonwealth BBN.