Vicky Graff Photo
By LILIA SAXENA SMITHSON, Contributing Writer
NARPS(Non-Athletic Regular People), I think it best we start with some deep breaths after last night’s loss to Vandy. Together, inhale and exhale.
Now, let’s get into it. I will lose my mind if I see the word “flag” between now and next week. There is nothing more bothersome for a UK fan than an offensive penalty pushing us back five yards here and another 10 yards there — FOR NO GOOD REASON! When do we learn? To be determined.
The UK defense I have been raving about collapsed to the Commodores — queue the heartbreak. It’s almost as if Vandy watched our film for the past few games, took some notes, and tested our strategies on us! Come to find out, it’s pretty effective!
We were all over the place this week. The slip on the snap for the extra point, leading to some miscellaneous running around, was hard to watch and was just one of the moments I was in pain staring at my TV screen.
Were we stressed because Rick Pitino was in town? I am sure he was impressed (not).
On the bright side, State Street was probably safe from typical couch-burning fire hazards!
As we take on Florida this week, I am encouraging our Cats to also do some deep breathing. I am not in the business of telling people how to coach, but Mark Stoops, I would recommend a bit of reevaluation and reflection.
One off game isn’t season-defining — even if it’s a Homecoming loss!
Our defense can get it back, and our offense can just as well. I have no doubt the Cats will CHOMP on the Gators next week (fingers crossed, knock on wood, you get the gist)!
Until next week, NARPS!
9 Responses
Once again, Larry Vaught comes to the rescue with his objectivity and sense of place and does not let his frustration blind him to the facts. You’re right, of course, but sometimes it helps to vent. Helps to keep us from going crazy. 🙂
This is actually weekly post by my intern Lilia Saxena Smithson — who nailed it here
She sure did.
For a non athletic person, she’s getting pretty athletic.
And, good on you Larry. Giving this young lady a job will keep her out of trouble:)
She is destined for greatness in whatever field she chooses
I just don’t understand our play calling. How can it be that bad. Why do we always shoot ourselves in he foot. If you take half the penalties away we win this game. Every time we had a big play it was coming back because of holding. I’ve seen more illegal formations in 6 games than I’ve seen in peewee league in 6 games. There are no excuses for this many penalties. Like I said before Mincey and M Cox are killing us every game. You can also throw Kattus in there who grades at the bottom of the barrel every week. Kattus needs to be benched. His grades are terrible in PFF. Go look for yourself every week he grades a 50 or below I’ve never seen a starting tight end even get a 60 every week and he’s at least 10 points below the scale. Does Stoops even watch the games?. I would bench Mincey and Cox. Bring them off the bench and let the backups play. We have to figure something out on offense. Even the announcers wad asking why are they only sending 1 or 2 receivers out for passes. We have 7 guys blocking a quarterback a RB and 2 receivers. That means the corners can play man the safeties can play a zone and then you have double teams on our receivers. That’s why it takes Brock so long to find a receiver open because there aren’t any. Then he has to either force a throw or take off running. He’s not very good at running the football. This is were Gavin Wimsatt comes in. I think he could honestly save this season by just running the football. Why don’t we run some option. With Wimsatt and Wilcox. That’s speed on speed on the outside. Another thing if we would have 4 receivers running very short routes we would do much better in the passing game. We don’t have enough eligible receivers in this style we’ve been playing. This year makes 3 years in a row of under average football. I think some fans were right when they said Stoops hit his ceiling in 2021 his second 10 win season. Since then we haven’t been the same team. At some point you can’t blame every offensive coordinator it has to be Stoops. We’ve had 3 different offensive coordinators in the last 3 years. I have a feeling Hamden will only be here for 2 years depending on how he finishes this year out. Illegal formations every game in college is unheard of. They need to run run run the ball. Stop passing the damn ball so much when we move the ball better running it. We will run the ball to the opposing teams 30 yard line then we start passing every time. We had the ball at the 1 then a offices penalty. Cox jumped way to early. Then we had it at the 5 and a half yard line. We had been getting 6-7 yards a carry and instead of running the ball with Wimsatt or Wilcox or DSK Nope the slowest guy on the team takes the handoff and don’t get anywhere BV. Then pass pass muffed field goal. That’s 0 points from the 1 yard line on first down. Steven Soles had 2 costly penalties on special teams. Taking Barion Browns 48 yard Kickoff return off the board. Every time we did something great we did something extra stupid after that. Penalties is bad discipline. Brown and Key go nuts after they catch a pass and are always aggressive with the defense. Remember against ole miss Brown almost cost us the game on his penalty. Key then does the same thing which is punk shit really. Bad things happen to bad people. Keep your mouth shut and let the scoreboard do the talking. We aren’t good enough to talk shit to anybody. Let that be known.
Team culture is history.
Team focus seldom showed up.
Team techniques never developed.
Team effort MIA.
Over a dozen years “experience” and over $9 Million salary.
ACCOUNTABILITY MISSING at every level!
UK President
UK board of (non)Trustees
UK Administrators with authority & voice.
UK Athletic Dept.
UK AD.
UK HC.
UK coaching Staff.
Barnie has never been questioned or held accountable table for TLT, the fraud, chjoker or Stoops & all the staff members of each. Not to mention the pathetic UK WBB coach who drug the program down to the cellar after Mitchell had built a great competitive program.
The AD has abused the UK funds as badly as the current WH administration has abused our tax money!
Barnie made 1 amazing hire – by default.
Is 1 great vs umpteen bad hires ok
Don’t forget Billy Clyde too!!!!
Stoops needs to be Caliparied. I really am at the stage where I can’t listen to any of his post game shows. It is always the same thing. Cliche City from start to finish. The man shows little/no emotion during a game unless he disagrees with a call. He spends more time watching the clock than engaging with the players and showing any type of passion, leadership, or coaching. Brock has shown 2 SEC teams that he is not a 5* and perhaps should stick with farming. It was a mistake not playing Wimsatt more in the game. I don’t understand what Stoops/Hamdan are thinking when they see Brock continuing to struggle with decisions and progressions. He has been getting better pass protect and not taking advantage. Our running back by committee has been very productive to date, especially with OL struggles, and we continue to ignore the short passes to keep chains moving. I still can’t understand why our receivers fail to get any good separation like all other teams seem to do.