Will Stein Not Happy With Sloppy Scrimmage

Fans of all ages lined up for autographs from UK players after Saturday's scrimmage. (Vicky Graff Photo)

By LARRY VAUGHT

It was not the best day for Kentucky football and coach Will Stein clearly was not overly happy after Saturday’s scrimmage. However, he knows it is still three weeks until the season opens.

“We are not playing today or tomorrow, so we got time, but time’s ticking. We’ve got to get the train moving. We have some work to do, but hey, that’s what you sign up for, and that’s why you practice.”

Stein chose “sloppy” to describe UK’s play in the team’s first preseason scrimmage

“I’m not going to let weather or heat play a factor into why it might look a certain way, because ultimately, this is going to be the temperature for the first game,” Stein said. “We’re on turf. It’s going to be hot. It’s the first game of September.”

Defensive coordinator Jay Bateman had a different mentality.

“It was hot. I love the heat,” Bateman said about the hot, humid, sunny weather.

The weather will not be changing dramatically in the next few days but Stein has other things on his mind.

“I’m slow to really judge where we’re at because I know there’s still installation that’s going on,” Stein said. “There’s schemes. They’re trying to perfect those. And when you’re trying to think on the football field, you usually slow down and play slower because you’re trying to think. And then other elements are out there, and you’re down some bodies in certain spots.”

Stein knows not to overreact over one scrimmage.

“I remember my first fall camp scrimmage out at Oregon (as offensive coordinator) with Bo Nix and, like, seven NFL players,” Stein said. “I don’t think we scored a touchdown, and we ended up leading the country in scoring.”

He felt his team was playing more for “survival” instead of “attack mode” during the scrimmage.

“It will be addressed and we will improve,” Stein said. “Practice a lot of times is to get things wrong and grow.”

Offensive coordinator Joe Sloan thought the offense “ran the ball well” most of the scrimmage.

“But a couple of penalties and a couple of things cost us big plays,” Sloan said. “Not like some other days we have had. There were some positives but definitely we can play better than what we did today.

“I thought individually some guys did good things and the second group was probably as effective as they have been through camp.”

Stein felt the first-team defense outplayed the offense while the second-team offense was a bit more even with the defense.

“There were some big plays on offense. But as a whole, I didn’t like how we started on offense,” Stein explained. “Just urgency. In and out of the huddle, breaking, the things that we can control. I can’t control what the ref does or a tipped ball or all this other stuff, but we can control our tempo.

“We can control our urgency in and out of the huddle. We can control our demeanor. And that’s what I really didn’t feel.”