Kentucky's defense has allowed only three points in the second half against Florida and Ole Miss. (Vicky Graff Photo)
In three of Kentucky’s five games this season, the UK defense has held its opponent scoreless. While that sounds good, Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White wants more.
“You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low,” White said Wednesday. “We’ve been in games when you come out scorching hot, on fire, then you come out and we did not play a good second half.”
“What we need to continue to do is put together full games, and that’s something we’re still working on.”
Kentucky hosts South Carolina Saturday night and likely will not have linebacker Jacquez Jones, one of its top playmakers this season.
Football Outsiders has Kentucky with the nation’s 17th best defense and 18th best on opponent offensive drives that end in a touchdown (.167). Yet against Ole Miss the UK defense gave up two touchdowns in the first quarter and got gashed by the Rebels.
“They’re just small execution errors, kind of uncharacteristic of what we’ve been able to do,” White said. “Those are things that we’ve got to, as a coaching staff we’ve got to continue to do better at, and as players in those moments, understanding football IQ, what I’m trying to get done with certain calls, they have to be aware of some things that we’ve talked about all week.”
“We had a letdown last week in that regard and we’ll try and get that fixed this week.”
Kentucky did regroup and gave up just three points in the second half. The Wildcats did not allow Florida to score the second half of that road win. White said his unit is “staying poised” and that is important.
“They’re not letting things that happen early in the game rattle them. They’re coming to the sideline, they know, if we made some mistakes, let’s get em’ corrected and play ball,” White said.
“”I was really proud of the guys, after that first quarter (at Ole Miss), they could have really easily been rattled and shaken. The environment down there, obviously the crowd was in it, they could have let their confidence get shaken. They didn’t, they stayed in it and kept fighting.”
“Jacquez (Jones) interception built some more confidence. Then you get the three-and-out the first drive of the second half. And those things continue to compound and build.”
Kentucky’s defense might have to carry the load Saturday against South Carolina if quarterback Will Levis is unable to play because of a leg injury even though coach Mark Stoops indicated no one was out yet at his Thursday post-practice update.
UK gave up just 91 yards on 31 plays in the second half against Florida. Against Ole Miss the Cats yielded 121 yards.
South Carolina is winless in SEC play against Georgia (48-7) and Arkansas (44-30) but has a proven quarterback in Oklahoma transfer Spencer Rattler.
“What we need to continue to do is put together full games, and that’s something we’re still working for,” White said.
One Response
Keep em under 17 and we should be OK.