Kentucky fans were not happy with UK's loss to Vanderbilt and neither was linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson. (Vicky Graff Photo)
When he played for Georgia, linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson was part of two national championship teams.
Once he transferred to Kentucky, he became an immediate starter and team leader this season. However, he’s not used to losing like Kentucky has three times already this season and made that clear after Saturday’s 20-13 loss to Vanderbilt.
“I don’t want to keep repeating the losing, play another team, and win again,” said the linebacker. “I’m not used to that. I ain’t from that. Definitely not trying to get used to it. Not try, we gotta make some changes because I’m not used to this feeling and I don’t like this feeling.”
Kentucky lost to Vanderbilt because of a series of errors that involved everything from penalties, special team mistakes, clock mismanagement and lack of discipline. Dumas-Johnson even had a roughing the passer penalty that kept a Vandy scoring drive alive.
“No matter what message you give to a team, you gotta go out there and execute the call,” Dumas-Johnson said after the game. “I don’t think we played our ball today. The reason why? I don’t know, but we just gotta play ball.
“We’ve already seen what type of ball we can play as a team. That just didn’t happen today. Why? I don’t know.”
Kentucky did look terrific in a win at then No. 6 Ole Miss and in a 13-12 loss to Georgia. However, the Cats also looked unfocused in an earlier 31-7 loss to South Carolina.
The Cats went from the least penalized team to committing 12 penalties. Freshman Steven Soles committed two penalties on special teams. The offensive tackles were called for a combined four holding penalties and one false start inside the Vandy 1-yard line.
“We just gotta limit the penalties. It kills a game like that. You have no chance when you have penalties like that, especially that last drive,” Dumas-Johnson said.
“We just gotta calm down. I’ve been in situations like this and came out on top multiple times. Get a quick stop, three-and-out, let the offense try to do their thing, give the offense a chance. I think that’s what we did the last two minutes, but the message is to just calm down, we’re good.”
6 Responses
I do not know the problem with this team, but I do know Stoops has had several teams that made those same kind of mistakes in the past. Stoops does not seem to be able to correct team problems involving Focus and Discipline and Clock Management has never been one of his strengths but he never has fixed it. For the clock management, since he has not learned how to accomplish this task at a favorable rate in all his years of coaching, he needs to turn it over to someone else, but that will never happen.
I appreciate all Stoops has done for UK, but I have not been to a game this year, nor have I watched one live. I will not waste my time on a team with no discipline or "want to."
Happy Stoops brought UK back from the ashes chjoker left.
He peaked at 10 wins & will struggle to get 5 this season.
Stoops has several issues which he has been UNWILLING to address!
•• controlling OC & that runs them off
•• NEVER having a REAL dedicated Special Teams coach to handle every aspect of it
– blocked kicks
– poor punt return & kickoff return coverage
– ALWAYS a sleepy team at kickoff & after half
– control freak who would rather play someone who is never late to one of his boring meetings instead of a player who has proven he is a GAME-day player!
– DC quality coach but over his head as HC
If Stoops REALLY cared about UK the way Pope does, he would pay (out of his own overloaded pockets) his brother Bob Stoops to either be the OC oversight coordinator or the OC. AND guarantee Bob that he will NEVER interfere, make a suggestion or even talk about the offense or to any offensive players or coach!!!
Just read where Coach Stoops said Wilcox doesn’t get more touches because he DOESN’T TIE HIS SHOES!
He had only 3 touches vs Vandy for over 11yards per carry.
Wilcox is the football version of Reed Sheppard.
Finnish this season, clean house, and start all over again. $9 million ought to buy a decent coach.
YEP—-it is the football version of the CAL nightmare all over again at this point in time with the football program. It truly is time for a change, but we are stuck once again with having to wait for a coach to make some kind of move on his own, because we know the A.D. ain’t gonna make any moves! We got lucky as he** that CAL finally decided he didn’t want to live with the pressure anymore and he at least had realized he had already seen his best days at KY. We also got lucky that a series of other coaching moves opened up the ARK job–otherwise CAL could have and would have stayed here until he was ready to retire–Mitch has been absolutely unwilling to take any action of his own when it comes to creating new starts for the men’s bball and football programs. He’s the one I wish would hang it up–the entire athletics program needs a complete overhaul in leadership, and it would be nice if we could get one of our own to lead the entire dept like we got for our men’s bball program. As long as Mitch is here, Stoops has the best job security in the nation. It has been a decade’s worth of the same issues and problems with the offense, specifically the passing game, pass blocking, and QB play. We had one season where those issues were minimal–and that was Levis’s first season when Liam Coen was the OC. One factor that made Coen so good at what he did was that he was an actual "QUARTERBACKS COACH", as well as being the OC. If u remember back to that season, Coen was out on that field and on the sideline ACTUALLY COACHING Levis and calling the plays–you could see while watching the games that he was actively involved in running that offense. And that showed up in the quality of Levis’s play, it showed up in the offensive stats, it showed up in the quality of the play and the ability to move the ball down the field and put drives together, it showed up in the point totals, and in the actual win-loss results. Coen had a lot to do with Levis becoming an NFL draft pick and accomplishing what he already has just two years in the league. And one loss people have NOT realized has had a tremendous long-term impact on this program, both in terms of culture and quality of play, is John Schlarman. There again, u had one of our own, a former player, who bled blue, and lived and died our football program, setting the tone for the culture and setting the standard for the expectations, and u just cannot replace that, that is priceless, and if u go back and look at the level of talent that was recruited at the O-Line from 2015-2021, along with the way they were taught, coached, and pushed, there was a reason they came to b known as the "Big Blue Wall". That group that was together for like 5-7 years–Darian Kinnard, Drake Jackson, Landon Young, Jon Toth, Bunchy Stallings, Luke Fortner, Kenneth Horsey–and there were more than them, those were just the ones I could remember right now–but that was the heart and core of that group who played together for so many years, and developed a tremendous chemistry that was contagious for the entire offense, they basically led the offense for that period of time, and we were not only winning,but dominating the line of scrimmage, against teams like FLA, LSU, TN, Miss St, SCAR, MIssouri, and Louisville–but Schlarman was a big part of why that group became so good together, and if u think back, that period from 2016-2021 is when the O-Line and the running game were at their best and most successful–and 2021 was the last season we had any of those old veterans who had basically built up what Stoops set in motion here…….there was a major step taken back beginning in 2022 after Coen had left, and after Levis had gotten injured. He, nor the rest of the season was ever the same after all of that, plus that was the season Chris Rodriguez missed the first four games due to that NCAA fiasco. That team and season was never on the same page from the start, and in my opinion, the entire culture and vibe surrounding that program have taken a major step back beginning that season, but I saw it even more so last year, and now again this year. This is the third straight season that we have just seen overall regression, and I’ll tell u this: we don’t even win 6 games and make a bowl last year without Ray Davis!!! That guy kept our running attack intact for one year longer than it would have been, because as I said, we have lost an entire group of veterans on both sides of the ball the last 3 seasons who all had the biggest hand in building up the best and most successful of what Stoops has built up here. Going back to 2015 & 2016 with Boom Williams, JoJo Kemp, then Benny, Bowden, C-ROD from 2018-2022, then Davis last year, we had a very long run of strong running backs that we were able to heavily rely on to bail us out when times got tough trying to move the ball and trying to score points–along with a cohesive, experienced, and talented O-LINE that were able to keep us, at minimum, COMPETITIVE, in the trenches! We don’t have that now on the offensive side of the ball. The defense is still good enough for us to be competitive in the SEC—but this is the first year since early on in Stoops’ time that we have not had a known, established running back who we knew we could put the ball and the game in their hands even before the season started. Altho I really do like what DEMI has done this year, and I like the fact that he is a dual-threat where he can also catch passes out of the backfield. But it’s just not enough in the long run. He gives his all, but he’s not in the same class as far as pure, textbook, physical running back as the Bennys and the C-RODs and the RAYs. Two of the main hallmarks of what makes Mark Stoops’ UK FB teams what they are and the two elements that, when they are at their strongest, have made team success at its strongest and have brought the highest amount of winning for him at UK, have taken major steps downward these last 2-3 years, and that has in turn just seemed to have killed off so much of the positive culture and the fighting spirit that we used to have in our football program. But I don’t think the loss of John Schlarman or Liam Coen, either one, over the last 4 yrs, can be overstated enough, and our downward spiral as a program coincides with the time in which they have been gone…….One loss permanently took with him so much of the spirit and the fight that had been built up–and the other one wasn’t given the control and the freedom to take over the offense as his own, which had been earned in just one year—and this has been the common theme throughout Stoops’ tenure–he is not an offensive-minded or offensively-imaganitive coach, and never will be–but he will never give or allow full complete trust and control to any of his OC’s–7 different OC changes in 12 years–that doesnt happen at any other program–and none of Stoops’ offensive skill players ever get to build up any continuity with any of their coordinators because of that. Every year his team is always learning a new system! Actually, the only OC Stoops has ever trusted is Eddie Gran–and if that’s the case, I would prefer he just bring him back again, and they go out and recruit another "athlete" like Lynn Bowden to play QB, and completely revamp the offense to accommodate a Wildcat, triple-option, ground-type attack–just load up on linemen and TE’s to block, and RB’s, and just forget the receivers and the passing game because he has never been able to make that work anyway—that style they ran with Lynn Bowden actually worked, and if it won us games in the SEC, if we could just beat the Vandy’s, SCAR’s, Missouri’s, Miss St’s and UofL’s with that, then sign me up for it! Because this year, we aren’t going to be able to hang our hats on wins of even THAT LEVEL!!!