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It’s natural to look at all the things that went wrong for Kentucky at Georgia in last week’s 51-13 loss — and a lot went wrong — and the mistakes that individual players made.
However, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops admitted there were some good things that did happen despite the score.
Perhaps the most important bit of positive news from the game was what Stoops thought of sophomore receiver Dane Key’s play.
Key was brilliant most of his freshman season but this year has only 16 catches in six games for 261 yards and two scores. He’s averaging 16.3 yards per catch, including a season-best 44-yard reception. He’s had several drops and also at times has seemed out of sync with quarterback Devin Leary.
Against Georgia, he had three catches fore 65 yards but Stoops was impressed with a lot more than just the receptions.
“Dane Key had been frustrated a little bit, maybe some on him, just frustration and down, really worked hard to improve and looked at himself and looked at areas to improve and it showed up on film,” Stoops said.
“Not always with the catches. There are still areas of improvement without the ball, blocking the perimeter, doing things that we have to do on offense to be efficient. I thought it was a good example of taking it to the practice field and working on your craft and trying to improve.”
That’s what Stoops would like to see more of instead of the “silly penalties” that stopped drives by UK or kept Georgia drives alive.
“Defensively, uncharacteristically, we had no answers, in particular early when they were scoring. At that point we need to try to start matching (scores), obviously that is going to be hard to do with Georgia,” Stoops said.
It shouldn’t be as hard against Missouri but the Cats still have to be efficient on offense and Key continuing to do things other than catching the football could certainly be a big help against the Tigers.
One Response
Wonder how much of UK’s problems can be attributed to being "overly eager?" Don’t know a better to put that.
Kids get excited, want to prove they can get it done and sometimes that eagerness can cause you to mess up, jump the gun, do stupid things, make mistakes you don’t normally make, etc. Kids and adults, sometimes have a hard time learning when to "make your point." Eagerness can cause you to just not think.
I know these kids care, and they try hard, but sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves and when these kids do that, it is much harder to perform because they are not in the mindset of "just play ball."