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Sixth-year senior offensive lineman Eli Cox played for offensive line coach Eric Wolford before he left UK for Alabama. Wolford is back at UK again despite a tumultuous departure and trying to make the Big Blue Wall a key part of UK’s success but the offensive line had massive struggles in last week’s loss to South Carolina.
“I just think he demands a lot of his players and he gives a lot to his players. There’s a high standard of play that he expects and he gives us,” Cox, UK’s starting center, said before UK lost to South Carolina. “I mean he gives us everything as a coach, anything we need. He’s always on top of it.
“There’s a sense really that there’s no stone unturned with him. He’s gonna think about any possible thing from your stance to making sure we have all these different supplements that we can use. He really is just an attention to detail guy and there’s no little thing that will go unnoticed. I think it’s just all about the details that you need at the offensive line position and he brings it.”
Those details apparently were not the right ones for South Carolina’s defense. While there’s a lot of attention on the different quarterbacks and offensive coordinators UK has had, Cox has also played for a variety of offensive line coaches since the passing of John Schlarman, the coach who recruited him.
“A lot of people would think that’s a negative but I think one of the positive aspects of it is there are so many different coaching points and tidbits I’ve taken from each coach we’ve had,” he said.
However, UK’s offensive line was not able to protect the quarterback in last week’s 31-6 loss to South Carolina and coach Mark Stoops says that has to change against No. 1 Georgia this week.
“We need some guys to improve and get better,” Stoops said. “I think we all know that we need to continue to build depth in the offensive line and that is a big point of emphasis for us. We just have to be better.”
“We got punched in the mouth and never responded. That’s unacceptable and cannot happen again,” Cox said.
8 Responses
At this season’s end, it will be time to clean house with this coaching staff. Start the "unofficial" search for a new coach today.
Whatever details he was paying attention to sure didn’t help the players prepare.
Wolford was the OL coach at Alabama last year when their OL wasn’t worth a nickle the first 3 games.
Why has there been total silence post game from Wolford? Why have we not heard anything from Marquis Cox the dude with all the experience? Why has Burton underachieved after being here for 3 yrs and coming in as a 4*? This OL could not have been as unprepared and unskilled in any worse case scenario imaginable.
Bringing this man back on the staff after the way he left 2 years ago is disgraceful.
Yes Professor but it also demonstrates just how far standards seem to have fallen at UK football.
That is exactly the point. That points to a leadership void.
What good does recruiting credits do if you can’t coach them?
Reads as thou Cox is not playing as effectively as last year. To many bad practice reps?
These guys need a coach to push them. They need to ask their coaches to push, push like we are very good! Have fun as a group, which makes it fun to work at every part of the game. And that is when a lot of positives will happen. That’s how you get every player on board with the same big goal……to win. That every player on the team has the same goal.
Be our best!