Transfer D.J. Waller could make a big impact in the UK secondary.
Kentucky has started preseason practice and will host Fan Day Saturday before starting serious preparation for the upcoming season next week.
Both coach Mark Stoops and defensive coordinator Brad White like what the Wildcats return and believe they have the deepest, most talented defensive roster in Stoops’ time at Kentucky.
Stoops shared several nuggets of information about his defense last week at the Southeastern Conference Media Days.
Question: Due to the injuries on your defensive line, have you seen any younger guys step up to fill those voids in a leadership role?
MARK STOOPS: Yeah, we’re going to have to. We really felt really good about the depth of our defensive line. It took a little hit in spring. Even at one position in Josaih Hayes and Tavion Gadson, who was a young guy that we were really looking forward to seeing him, and both of them took an injury in the spring. We’ll see when they get back. But we feel like we have some depth and some guys are stepping up and working hard, and it’s pretty good to anchor it with big No. 0, with Deone in there. We feel like we’ll be alright.
Question: How do you feel about the cornerback position across the field from Maxwell Hairston and in the slot? What did you learn from the spring, and what does DJ Waller add there?
MARK STOOPS: Yeah, DJ Waller is a transfer from Michigan. I like DJ. He has great length. We need some size back in our secondary, and Jake Kauwe is getting better, Nasir at corner I feel could make a big jump this year, as well, and Jantzen Dunn is another guy that he’s done some good things at nickel. We feel like he’s making some progress, can play corner. Of course Maxwell, we think the world of him. He’s a difference maker. He’s an elite player, a guy that will play on Sundays.
I feel like we have more depth than we’ve had. It jumped up and bit us a little bit last year. But again, no whining, no crying, no excuses. Everybody in here has injuries, and it hurt us a little bit late, but we’d better go fix it.
Question: You’ve got nine starters back on defense. In this day and age with the portal, that’s pretty rare. How do you feel about that and just your defense for the season?
MARK STOOPS: Yeah, I like our defense. I like the group. I like the leadership. As I mentioned from a previous question, I feel like there’s some young guys on the defensive line that we’re continuing to progress. We just addressed the cornerback situation. I feel like we’ve made some improvements there and some young guys are growing up, hit the portal. Overall we feel like it’s a good group. You need the depth. It’s a long season. You need some impact players. We have some experience with J.J. coming back up front and Deone and Tre’vonn Rybka and Octavious Oxendine.
We feel very good about that. We have a transfer in Georgia with Pop Johnson. Pop is an impact guy. He’s a big, physical dude, and we needed that.
Question: Tyreese Fearbry kind of popped in the bowl game. What is his potential as an edge rusher and what are you looking for from him?
MARK STOOPS: Yeah, Tyreese did make some games last year, and we need him to. We need that edge rusher. We need J.J. Weaver to really be consistent. He’s shown flashes for years. He’s been around a while with a lot of experience, and we expect a lot out of J.J. But Tyreese is stepping up and we need him to. We need to get back to having that edge pressure and at times be able to rush four and get the pressure you need and play coverage behind it. It’s obviously a mixture and a balance there that we’re always fighting.
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I know pre season rankings can be mean less, but CBS had the cats rank 32 and had Missouri rank at 11. Will see how this plays out.
We are a top 15 team. We were overrated a little the last 2 years. It only takes on position group to be weak and once that’s figured out it will be exploited every game after it’s exposed. I think our secondary was respected until the Missouri game. Once they seen that you can pass under the defense on every play our season went out the door. We also had a below average offensive line. 2 years ago when Levis was the star we had no offensive line. Probably the worst offensive line that I’ve ever seen in a power conference. We fixed both of them problems. Our only unknown this year is running back and quarterback. We have depth at quarterback so we can fix that. Running back on the other hand Chip is very good but after him we lack depth. We need him to stay healthy, but I see him carrying the workload so he will definitely get banged up. We need sumo to really step his game up this year. After him is a true freshman. You don’t want a true freshman as your feature back in the SEC. We have a much better team than we have ever had during the Stoops tenure.
I’ve seen Mizzou picked for the 12 team playoff in a few predictions. Ugh.
Plus I called what Stoops finally said this is his deepest team that he’s had. By far the most talented team he’s had. This isn’t a 7 win season. If injuries pile up who knows but if we can stay as healthy as everyone else this will be the best year for Kentucky football in my lifetime. I’m 41. I grew up in the Curry years. So I always saw us as a THE BOTTOM FEEDER. We have an exceptional team for what we have had here historically. We’ve been to 21 bowls in 100 years. Or 90 years whenever they started the bowls. Stoops has been to 8 in a row and this will be 9 ina row. 9 out of 22 bowls almost half is because of Stoops. He gets the least nil money in the SEC and he still fields good teams every year. Even the 7 win seasons we were competitive and could have easily won 9 games. It’s now or never this is the year we bust through I don’t think we go to the SEC championship. But I think we finish 3rd or 4th and sneak into the college playoff. We win the first game and lose the second finishing 11-3
I just read that Kentucky paid swimmers and football players for work that was never performed at the medical center. We aren’t talking about huge amounts of money but as a result we have to forfeit the 10 wins of the 2021 football season and are on probation for 2 years. There is no bowl ban. With the absurd money being paid out in NIL the past two years, you would think the NCAA would have had more important things to look at. The Hoosiers in the NCAA office in Indianapolis have always had a hardon for Kentucky and apparently they don’t have to buy Viagra, just think about Kentucky. The NCAA is so biased and outdated. You would think the college presidents could come up with a better way to police themselves, but I guess Republicans and Democrats have a better chance of working together. Money has ruined college athletics, it has poisoned our politics, and is eating away at the moral fiber of our country. God is right…the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
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