Demie Sumo-Karngbaye could get a lot of work against Georgia. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Who would have thought six weeks ago that Demie Sumo-Karngbaye would need to be Kentucky’s go-to running back against Georgia and perhaps the player who needs to have the best game to give UK any chance against the No. 1 Bulldogs?
Yet that is what has happened with Ohio State transfer Chip Trayanum slated to miss his third straight game with a broken hand and now true freshman Jason Patterson also ruled out with an injury.
Sumo-Karngbaye and Patterson were UK’s offense against South Carolina as they combined for 115 yards on 27 carries in the 31-6 loss.
Trayanum was expected to be UK’s No. 1 running back with Sumo-Karngbaye backing him up. Instead, Patterson has been Sumo-Karngbaye’s backup and gained 73 yards on 14 carries in the first two games. Now UK will turn to redshirt freshman Jamarion Wilcox or true freshman Tovani Mizell, who missed his high school senior season with a knee injury, as the backup running back.
“We’ll be alright with Jamarion (Wilcox) and Demie, and we’ll go from there,” Stoops said Thursday. “If not, we’ll throw it around. Tovani (Mizell) will be back as well if we need him.”
Stoops admitted Mizell was not quite 100 percent yet.
“He’s still coming on. He’s 100 percent healthy, but you know what I mean. It’s hard to be as effective as you once were as a runner — it just comes with time,” the UK coach said.
Georgia held Clemson to 43 yards rushing and gave up just 116 yards on 40 attempts against Tennessee Tech last week.
11 Responses
What else can he say, what he says here is consistent with his public pronouncements for 12 years, i.e., meaningless mush that contains essentially no substance.
I understand that coaches, including this coach, don’t want to speak candidly about problems with the team, the coaches, or the individual players.
"We’ll be OK" is true, but that does not mean we’ll be competitive, much less win games. We’ll be OK because the truth of the matter is that this team will not be competive today, and will not win today EVEN IF IT HAS NO INJURED RUNNING BACKS, OR NO INJURED OL PLAYERS, ETC.
How can any team be ok with 2 running backs out? He does his share of blathering. I still question the heart or incompetency of the training staff with the plethora of injuries we seem to have every year which seems to exceed those of other teams.
I agree why is our injury report always have a ton of injuries? Twice as much as even the second to last most injuries in the SEC. I think its a conditioning issue. I’ve always heard a team not properly conditioned gets hurt alot.
Heart of the team players.
We’ll be okay is coach talk for my goose is cooked!
UK does seem to have more injuries than some other teams, but I don’t really keep up with other teams so it is just from how it seems.
As for being OK with 2 running backs out, it is what it is. There is nothing anyone can do about it, so it has to be OK.
Who knows, UK might find some really good players that just play better on game day than in practice. A lot of players lose their starting spots from just such events.
In an appearance on ‘Another Dooley Noted Podcast’ this week, Spurrier called the Wildcats’ effort ’embarrassing’ while singling out the poor coaching on the Kentucky sideline.
“Their defense completely stymied a bad Kentucky offense. That was bad. … South Carolina played defense and they had the spirit. They just clobbered ’em, clobbered Kentucky,” Spurrier said. “… You can tell South Carolina was much better. Mentally, physically, and everything else – prepared to play. Kentucky had a bad game coaching plan and everything. It was embarrassing, I think, for them.”
Remember when he said a 65-0 win over the Cats in 1996 “(doesn’t) prove very much” except that “we’re better than Kentucky” during his time at Florida? Or his infamous “Kentucky has a heck of a punter, I know that” line after holding the Cats to 96 total yards in a 54-3 win in 2011 at South Carolina?
This is what people across the country think of Kentucky football. It’s time for a change.
"We’ll just throw it around" lol we couldn’t throw it around vs south Carolina what makes stools think we will throw it around against Georgia. This went from being the best Stoops team on paper to looking like his worst team on the field. If South Carolina dominated our offensive line and old dominion scored more points on the road than Kentucky did at home its going to be a long grueling season to watch. I’m gonna tune in but if we start getting routed I will turn the tv off. I’m not driving to Lexington wasting my time and money on this shit show. Its embarrassing for your team to be this bad. I thought chip might miss the first game and play the second but now I see he’s still out. How is that? At the beginning of august they said 4-6 weeks its been 6 weeks and he’s still completely out? Injuries has really hurt this team before the season even started. Stoops doesn’t like being honest about players health. I remember when players would wrap there hand up and still play. 6 weeks? And still not playing? Why does Kentucky have twice as many people on the injured list than any other school in the sec? Is it conditioning? I believe its a conditioning problem and we’ve had this problem for awhile. We always look tired and not pumped up. Its the same old song.
Yumm Yumm eat him up.
Stay on that ship SB
It doesn’t matter which running back we use when we have no passing game.