Mark Stoops on Kenneth Horsey, Dylan Ray, and Jager Burton

Kentucky coach Mark Stoops normally doesn’t say a lot about individual players but did share a few insights on three offensive linemen Monday.

On senior Kenneth Horsey’s absence on the depth chart after getting injured against Ball State …
Stoops: “The good news is that it will not be season-ending at this point. He will be out for a couple weeks, I think, at least.”

On how West Virginia transfer Dylan Ray after replacing Horsey played after watching film…
“He played good. He played about like we thought he would. I had a lot of confidence in him going into it and I was impressed with the way he played.”

On how center Jager Burton played after watching film…
“A lot of good and some things that just can’t happen. We expect consistency out of him. There’s a young man, in a new position, it’s a lot going on. Even with him making a lot of the protections [calls], ID’ing things, and then snapping, and then playing well. You put it all together, there’s a lot on his plate. I thought he handled it good, but we expect him to get better as we go along.”

On the difficulty of replicating the center position in practice…
Stoops: “Yeah, I think that’s very true in a lot of ways. Dylan Ray, to your point, hadn’t had a lot of game snaps and goes in there for his first game and really did some good things. Jager’s had some experience, but it’s different at center. Experience matters and he’ll get more comfortable as we go. He battles, he works hard, and he’s very bright, so he’ll get it done.