Brad White and the UK defense are getting tested in practice by Devin Leary. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky’s defense has had some difficult times trying to cope with new UK quarterback Devin Leary in practice already — and defensive coordinator Brad White loves it.
Rather than panicking about practice mistakes, White sees this is a learning opportunity for his veteran unit.
“It’s huge because it forces our guys to work on disguising. Anytime you’re going against a high level player, it elevates your game. When you have a quarterback, it makes the whole defense better because you have to realize, ‘Hey, listen, we can’t work independently,’” White said.
“To fool him, we have to do this all on a string. We have to work together. The pocket is going to be really important to disrupt some of the vision and then the disguise in the back end to try to create some confusion.
“That’s where the great quarterbacks separate themselves, the ones that can diagnose quickly, the full field, and then they know where to go with the ball. Or they know which check to make if they have to check to a better play.”
Leary is showing he can do all that and it is not only UK defenders who are being tested by his creativity and productivity.
“It makes me better as a coach. If you’ve got a young quarterback that can’t operate, it’s easy to call defense and you can confuse them quite a bit. It makes me work. It makes me rethink when you’re trying to confuse an older guy,” White said.
4 Responses
LV – now that’s an insightful FB article.
Thanks Paul
GO BIG BLUE
Leary seems to be the real deal. White and his defense are not slouches and yet Leary is getting the better of them more often than not. The O line seems to be better, the run game is legit, the tight ends are stepping up to take some pressure off of the wide outs, and if the RBs can catch, this offense will present problems to almost everyone. Coen is the right coach to be calling the plays for this group. Hopefully, White and the defense are becoming a better unit as a result of trying to stop this offense. If our kicking game is decent, it will be an interesting season. I don’t see a win in Athens, but Tennessee and Alabama could be winnable barring injuries. A 10-2 record is very doable which should get a New Year’s day bowl game that could make for 11 wins. It’s too bad that we are in the same division as Georgia.