Kentucky's loss to South Carolina on Saturday was one of the worst displays for the program in several years. It would be easy to just say Levis was out, but there are no mulligans to hand out with the loss to Ole Miss the week prior. The loss probably takes quite a bit off the table this season.
I've heard conflicting things on the likelihood that Levis plays this week. There's been some chatter that we could be looking at Kaiya Sheron at quarterback again, but I am not ready to guess on which way that will go. First, on Sheron, I don't place any of the blame for that loss on him. If you look at his final numbers, almost anybody would have taken that going into the game, especially considering it was his first start, Scangarello scaled back the playbook significantly, and he had poor protection.
Backup QB Depth Chart
I don't blame Sheron for the game on Saturday. He did what the coaches told him to. The reality is Kentucky's HS QB recruiting has just been absolutely horrible for the last decade. There are many reasons for this. OC/QB coach turnover (3 in 3 years again, 5 in Stoops era), trying to recruit quarterbacks to what has been a run heavy offense, and plain bad luck.
Don't forget that Kentucky almost signed an eventual Heisman trophy winning quarterback in Mac Jones, and at the time it was quite surprising that Alabama was taking him.
But whether we are talking about Gunnar Hoak, Danny Clark, the list goes on, none of these guys have been at an SEC level. There are not many schools in the country that have struggled to recruit QBs like Kentucky and they have managed to succeed in spite of that (pretty wild really), but it bit them on Saturday. Sheron is early in his second year in the program and it was a tough spot but Kentucky had several years of poor QB recruiting results in classes around him that also contributed to that.
Seems very likely that Kentucky isn't going to take a 2023 quarterback, again. There's a pressure valve with the portal but you just don't know how that is going to play out and if you are frequently punting long term development and depth for portal solutions then sometimes you are going to get hurt by that.
State of the Big Blue Wall
It's just a mess right now and there is so much to say. I think Jager Burton and Eli Cox have bright futures in front of them. Cox has started to play really well these past couple of weeks and I see some good flashes from Burton. He's just so young. If Flax were at right tackle that would help a little but we saw that it wasn't a silver bullet when he played. Flax has had some fantastic moments and a lot of moments where he has ended up on the ground. Manning has been similar that respect. Horsey is a proven SEC lineman but is playing out of position. Long story short, given Flax's injury, Cox is really the only person who isn't a bit uncomfortable, forced into a starting role very early, or a significant work in progress.
The most striking thing: They're not really rotating backups in. They've moved some guys around. But in spite of the fact that the line has been one of the worst in the country, they aren't substituting or rotating guys in to try something. Normally when you're giving up five sacks a game to a schedule that includes some of the worst pass rushing teams in the country you'd be throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. But the fact that there are a number of guys who have been in the program for multiple years who are not getting their chance tells you on some level that the coaches just don't think they're ready.
1) OL coach turnover - Schlarman/Wolford/Yenser the last three years. That's a lot. Along the way they've replaced pretty much the whole line from the start of that era and now they're running a pro-style offense. They're asking more of those guys than they did in the Big Blue Wall's prime.
2) Scheme - This offense does not make it easy on offensive linemen. They've used tight ends to help them protect quite a bit but this is a true pro style offense and one of my criticisms has been I don't know if they have the blocking for it. In some ways I think it has made the issues more acute. Introducing and doing more wide zone during so many struggles is just more on their plate.
3) Recruiting misses - Just last year, I thought UK could have taken two more OTs. They missed on several guys (Bobo, Richardson, Aamil Wagner) and I thought each of those misses was understandable viewed in isolation. Legacies, connections, etc., so while UK was a short list for a lot of those guys, they were still up against it. But clearly they have not recruited well enough on the offensive line. That is pretty much undebatable at this point. Ultimately they will not get much from the 2018/19 OL classes. 2020 is TBD.
4) Tyler Steen - If Wolford hadn't left for Alabama, it's a good bet that he would be Kentucky's starting left tackle. If you swap out the LT play Kentucky has gotten for Alabama's, that is not a small impact. They probably would have signed Jalen Farmer from the last class as well.
Frankly, it's too early for me to say with any confidence what blame goes to the offensive line coach because I'm not in those meeting rooms. When I watched him coach over the summer he seemed like a great fit.
One big thing I will say maybe not on Yenser's behalf but just a reality is that the struggles on the o-line should not be a surprise. That they are THIS much of a problem is a surprise, but I think people saw (or should have seen) struggles coming up front. They've got guys out of position, had little proven depth, you thought they were getting a tackle in the portal and they didn't, etc. I also think that Wolford didn't really click with some of the offensive linemen in the program.
Basically, I'm of the opinion that the Big Blue Wall is a total rebuild and they should rightfully sell that brand in recruiting but for all practical purposes they have to build it anew because they're starting almost from scratch. That isn't writing off anybody starting or backing up the starters now but based on the numbers this year it's tough to argue it. I think this is a huge deal because offensive line play is at the center of every success Stoops has had. It has allowed him to play his brand of football and coach the way he wants and we know they have been fantastic in one score games. A key ingredient to that is gone.
The number one storyline for UK football right now is the offensive line. If they rebuild that, they can get right back on track as a program. If this level of line play continues it will be hard to sustain the level of success Stoops achieved.
Special Teams Miscues
No excuse for a program to have such a hard time snapping, holding, and kicking. Even if you're on a backup somewhere there, guys who have been in an SEC program for years now. Ultimately, it's impossible to not talk about the lack of a special teams coordinator. I have never really put a lot of stock in that because everybody I talk to seems to shrug about it as an impact but when you routinely struggle to snap, hold, and make simple kicks, more than almost anybody else you watch, it's clearly way off. Not SEC level in that area.
The crazy thing is special teams should be an equalizer for Kentucky. If you were to draw up a path for UK to be great in football one almost indispensable ingredient would be the chops on special teams to level out the talent gap against the likes of UGA etc. They've thrown a lot of scholarships at kickers over the years and don't have much to show for it.
So what is the solution for these things?
They have to take a high school quarterback every year.
They need to make someone a special teams coordinator.
I would take as many decent offensive line prospects as they can find and see who works out.
Play calling has not been as good as it was last year. I never questioned Coen as a play caller. He wasn't perfect at all but week after week you could tell that he was doing a good job of getting their best play makers the ball against opponents based on the matchup. I think right now is probably not the best moment to make overly confident statements about Scangarello while everyone is most mad but he has to prove himself in that role.
C Rod should have had more carries. They're extremely slow and extremely pro style right now and I just don't get that when you have a bad o-line but you're good everywhere else. It seems totally counterintuitive. If you have a great QB, why do you want to shorten the game so much, especially when your defense has gotten to a level where it doesn't need to be carefully protected all the time. When Stoops said they have to be who they are based on personnel I would apply that to tempo as well. They don't have to be the fastest team in the country but when you are the slowest it sort of makes sense to explain the rationale for that and I'm not sure it's the best formula with this team.
Finally, the best point somebody could make is: "Look, the o-line is what it is. We haven't had Levis and C Rod together except for one game this year." That's fine, but they scored 19 points in that game against Ole Miss, which just gave up 28 and 400 yards to Vanderbilt.
If Levis plays the rest of the way I think Kentucky could still go 8-4 but they have to win this weekend. I don't see them beating Mississippi State if he doesn't play and they're going to have a tall order beating either UGA or UT even with Levis. This weekend is a close to an absolute must win for the season not to go down as a bust in my opinion, and I don't say that often.
There are other issues to talk about like the development of the defensive line, how the defense played in the last game, and other stuff, but those three things -- QB recruiting, the OL, and simple special teams stuff, would fix a lot of it.
I've heard conflicting things on the likelihood that Levis plays this week. There's been some chatter that we could be looking at Kaiya Sheron at quarterback again, but I am not ready to guess on which way that will go. First, on Sheron, I don't place any of the blame for that loss on him. If you look at his final numbers, almost anybody would have taken that going into the game, especially considering it was his first start, Scangarello scaled back the playbook significantly, and he had poor protection.
Backup QB Depth Chart
I don't blame Sheron for the game on Saturday. He did what the coaches told him to. The reality is Kentucky's HS QB recruiting has just been absolutely horrible for the last decade. There are many reasons for this. OC/QB coach turnover (3 in 3 years again, 5 in Stoops era), trying to recruit quarterbacks to what has been a run heavy offense, and plain bad luck.
Don't forget that Kentucky almost signed an eventual Heisman trophy winning quarterback in Mac Jones, and at the time it was quite surprising that Alabama was taking him.
But whether we are talking about Gunnar Hoak, Danny Clark, the list goes on, none of these guys have been at an SEC level. There are not many schools in the country that have struggled to recruit QBs like Kentucky and they have managed to succeed in spite of that (pretty wild really), but it bit them on Saturday. Sheron is early in his second year in the program and it was a tough spot but Kentucky had several years of poor QB recruiting results in classes around him that also contributed to that.
Seems very likely that Kentucky isn't going to take a 2023 quarterback, again. There's a pressure valve with the portal but you just don't know how that is going to play out and if you are frequently punting long term development and depth for portal solutions then sometimes you are going to get hurt by that.
State of the Big Blue Wall
It's just a mess right now and there is so much to say. I think Jager Burton and Eli Cox have bright futures in front of them. Cox has started to play really well these past couple of weeks and I see some good flashes from Burton. He's just so young. If Flax were at right tackle that would help a little but we saw that it wasn't a silver bullet when he played. Flax has had some fantastic moments and a lot of moments where he has ended up on the ground. Manning has been similar that respect. Horsey is a proven SEC lineman but is playing out of position. Long story short, given Flax's injury, Cox is really the only person who isn't a bit uncomfortable, forced into a starting role very early, or a significant work in progress.
The most striking thing: They're not really rotating backups in. They've moved some guys around. But in spite of the fact that the line has been one of the worst in the country, they aren't substituting or rotating guys in to try something. Normally when you're giving up five sacks a game to a schedule that includes some of the worst pass rushing teams in the country you'd be throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. But the fact that there are a number of guys who have been in the program for multiple years who are not getting their chance tells you on some level that the coaches just don't think they're ready.
1) OL coach turnover - Schlarman/Wolford/Yenser the last three years. That's a lot. Along the way they've replaced pretty much the whole line from the start of that era and now they're running a pro-style offense. They're asking more of those guys than they did in the Big Blue Wall's prime.
2) Scheme - This offense does not make it easy on offensive linemen. They've used tight ends to help them protect quite a bit but this is a true pro style offense and one of my criticisms has been I don't know if they have the blocking for it. In some ways I think it has made the issues more acute. Introducing and doing more wide zone during so many struggles is just more on their plate.
3) Recruiting misses - Just last year, I thought UK could have taken two more OTs. They missed on several guys (Bobo, Richardson, Aamil Wagner) and I thought each of those misses was understandable viewed in isolation. Legacies, connections, etc., so while UK was a short list for a lot of those guys, they were still up against it. But clearly they have not recruited well enough on the offensive line. That is pretty much undebatable at this point. Ultimately they will not get much from the 2018/19 OL classes. 2020 is TBD.
4) Tyler Steen - If Wolford hadn't left for Alabama, it's a good bet that he would be Kentucky's starting left tackle. If you swap out the LT play Kentucky has gotten for Alabama's, that is not a small impact. They probably would have signed Jalen Farmer from the last class as well.
Frankly, it's too early for me to say with any confidence what blame goes to the offensive line coach because I'm not in those meeting rooms. When I watched him coach over the summer he seemed like a great fit.
One big thing I will say maybe not on Yenser's behalf but just a reality is that the struggles on the o-line should not be a surprise. That they are THIS much of a problem is a surprise, but I think people saw (or should have seen) struggles coming up front. They've got guys out of position, had little proven depth, you thought they were getting a tackle in the portal and they didn't, etc. I also think that Wolford didn't really click with some of the offensive linemen in the program.
Basically, I'm of the opinion that the Big Blue Wall is a total rebuild and they should rightfully sell that brand in recruiting but for all practical purposes they have to build it anew because they're starting almost from scratch. That isn't writing off anybody starting or backing up the starters now but based on the numbers this year it's tough to argue it. I think this is a huge deal because offensive line play is at the center of every success Stoops has had. It has allowed him to play his brand of football and coach the way he wants and we know they have been fantastic in one score games. A key ingredient to that is gone.
The number one storyline for UK football right now is the offensive line. If they rebuild that, they can get right back on track as a program. If this level of line play continues it will be hard to sustain the level of success Stoops achieved.
Special Teams Miscues
No excuse for a program to have such a hard time snapping, holding, and kicking. Even if you're on a backup somewhere there, guys who have been in an SEC program for years now. Ultimately, it's impossible to not talk about the lack of a special teams coordinator. I have never really put a lot of stock in that because everybody I talk to seems to shrug about it as an impact but when you routinely struggle to snap, hold, and make simple kicks, more than almost anybody else you watch, it's clearly way off. Not SEC level in that area.
The crazy thing is special teams should be an equalizer for Kentucky. If you were to draw up a path for UK to be great in football one almost indispensable ingredient would be the chops on special teams to level out the talent gap against the likes of UGA etc. They've thrown a lot of scholarships at kickers over the years and don't have much to show for it.
So what is the solution for these things?
They have to take a high school quarterback every year.
They need to make someone a special teams coordinator.
I would take as many decent offensive line prospects as they can find and see who works out.
Play calling has not been as good as it was last year. I never questioned Coen as a play caller. He wasn't perfect at all but week after week you could tell that he was doing a good job of getting their best play makers the ball against opponents based on the matchup. I think right now is probably not the best moment to make overly confident statements about Scangarello while everyone is most mad but he has to prove himself in that role.
C Rod should have had more carries. They're extremely slow and extremely pro style right now and I just don't get that when you have a bad o-line but you're good everywhere else. It seems totally counterintuitive. If you have a great QB, why do you want to shorten the game so much, especially when your defense has gotten to a level where it doesn't need to be carefully protected all the time. When Stoops said they have to be who they are based on personnel I would apply that to tempo as well. They don't have to be the fastest team in the country but when you are the slowest it sort of makes sense to explain the rationale for that and I'm not sure it's the best formula with this team.
Finally, the best point somebody could make is: "Look, the o-line is what it is. We haven't had Levis and C Rod together except for one game this year." That's fine, but they scored 19 points in that game against Ole Miss, which just gave up 28 and 400 yards to Vanderbilt.
If Levis plays the rest of the way I think Kentucky could still go 8-4 but they have to win this weekend. I don't see them beating Mississippi State if he doesn't play and they're going to have a tall order beating either UGA or UT even with Levis. This weekend is a close to an absolute must win for the season not to go down as a bust in my opinion, and I don't say that often.
There are other issues to talk about like the development of the defensive line, how the defense played in the last game, and other stuff, but those three things -- QB recruiting, the OL, and simple special teams stuff, would fix a lot of it.
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