Kentucky's offense has not produced a touchdown in SEC play but made progress last week. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky has not scored a touchdown in two Southeastern Conference games against South Carolina and Georgia — the only points have come on six field goals by Alex Raynor.
However, offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said the offense made progress against Georgia and players showed they understand small things made a big difference.
“I think the thing we all realized was the attention to detail, getting lined up, playing fast, eliminating penalties, all of those things made us drastically better,” Hamdan said Tuesday. “Did the scoreboard show it? Absolutely not.
“But I think when you go through a week like we did with South Carolina where the second half is just penalties, self-inflicted wounds, you go and play the No. 1 team in the country, play relatively clean, and have a chance at the end to win the football game. Practice execution equals game day reality. That focus has been turned up and we gotta keep it there.”
Kentucky had 23 first downs and over 200 rushing yards without the negative sack yardage against Georgia, one of the best defenses in the country.
“This is not a final product in week two or three. It’s a constant state of improvement,” Hamdan said. “That’s the message from them, from myself for everybody. We gotta keep taking the next step.”
Senior center Eli Cox said players have to understand now that plays are there to be made if they execute properly.
“Eleven guys have to be on exactly the right spot every single play for those big plays to happen against a good defense,” Cox said. “We were just one thing short (against Georgia). Whatever the play was, we had an opportunity, and the play was there. We just gotta make ’em.”
4 Responses
FB 101.
Spring Practice & August are the time when real teams with real coaches teach players they paying attention to detail & executing plays as planned will produce yardage – and if play calling is decent it will produce points.
How can any $9 Million coach with his high paid assistants fail to instill such basic principals into the starters !?!!
I think you can throw all that game preparation out the window when the offensive line is terrible at pass blocking. Brock never has time to set his feet and that’s the most important part of being able to throw the ball accurately to someone who’s open. I think we need abandon the pass all together. When Lynn Bowden took over it changed our season. We was on the brink of not going to a bowl game and him running the ball saved us. We actually had a good pass blocking and run blocking line that year. I think the problem with alot of our offensive lineman is they are too slow. You have to have good footwork and be able to move good on pass blocking. He gets these 300+ pound 3* offensive lineman because he sees the other power schools use 300+ pound offensive lineman. The difference is their o line can move good ours cant. We are always solid at run blocking for the same reason we have big offensive lineman who can blow holes in the defensive line. Run blocking is much easier than pass blocking. We need to put Gavin in because he’s a much better runner than Brock and he’s a better passer than Lynn Bowden. He can maybe pass 10-15 times a game just to keep the defense honest. Then you can run slot of motion offense and fake or make handoffs and average about 5-7 ypc. That’s what I see from the first 3 games. We are terrible at every phase of passing the football. So we need to move onto something that works better. That’s what a good football team and coaching staff do. Gavin would win more games as the starter then Brock will. Brock needs time and we just can’t give him the time he needs so we need to switch it up. Gavin is better suited with this offensive line to make something happen. He’s faster than Brock and has much better agility and he’s bigger he can run over people and run around them.
Brock proved he can run the ball but the OC quit calling his number.
UK needs a quick pass game and not time consuming routes. Those type passes are best when TE is catching it. The Oc has NOT used the TE’s for many passes even though UK has better results when passing to a TE than to a butter finger WR.
If a D is going to play soft in the middle because they are focusing on stopping passes to the WR’s then a good OC would run it AND have the TE slip thru the line for a 5 to 8 yard gain.
One of the dumbest passes is the typical UK/Stoops style “lateral” pass which is just a few feet from being a lateral and yardage is lost when tackled behind the LOS. Screen passes can be effective but just tossing it sideways across the field to a WR without any serious screen is an invitation to list yardage.