Special teams not all bad but UK had “embarrassing” breakdowns at Ole Miss

Kentucky gave away at least five points in the kicking game at Ole Miss. (Vicky Graff Photo)

It was no surprise that Kentucky coach Mark Stoops got asked a lot about special teams play Monday after the issues UK had in Saturday’s 22-19 loss at Mississippi.

The Cats missed a field goal, did not convert two extra point kicks and failed to field a punt that pinned UK on its own 1-yard line.

Stoops said it was difficult to assess his team’s play on special teams.

“If I say I’m pleased with my special teams y’all (in the media) would laugh at me and put headlines in the news,” Stoops said. “There’s a lot of phases to special teams. The four cores we call it: kickoff, kickoff return, punt, punt return, pretty darn solid. Pretty impressive. We have two blocked punts, on kickoff return has a chance to go to the house every time, that’s pretty hard to do.”

“Kickoff coverage has been damn good. I think we had one in the YSU (Youngstown State) game or the other games that spit out a little bit. So, there’s phases of it that are as good as we’ve ever had.”

But…

“Then there’s the snappers, the kickers and the holders. How do you define that? I really don’t know either. You have the four cores and they are all part of it. We need to do what we do. Our guys have done it a thousand times correctly, snapped, held and kicked. Very good. That Saturday is not good, kind of embarrassing so we’ve got to get those things cleaned up and do the routine,” the UK coach said.

Stoops said he does not “over coach” kicker Matt Ruffolo in games to avoid messing with his psyche. He thought Ruffolo hit the field goal he missed fine but the wind might have helped take the ball outside the goal post.

“What am I going to tell him? I mean, kick the damn ball through the uprights,” Stoops joked. “We are only allowed so many coaches, you know what I mean?”

“It’s not like a golf person can have an expert, you know what I mean? I’m not allowed to have somebody here, just teaching the mechanics of that.”

Long snapping — never a serious issue in Stoops’ time at UK — has suddenly become a huge issue. Stoops noted that snapper Cade Degraw has “been a little banged up” and that has not helped. He also said one blown extra point was more on the hold than the snap.

“It was a fraction low, but we do that all the time, we have to make that hold, just got to set it like we always do. I thought live it was the snap as well, but really after watching the tape it was right off the ground. Just got to catch it and put it down,” Stoops said.