Breaking down the Cats and Cocks
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Interceptions correlate directly with QB pressures. Despite our overall defense being poor last season we were one of the best teams in the country with QB pressures. That was basically becasue we had two outstanding edge rushers, both of whom are now playing on Sunday. It's yet to be seen if we have the horses to create that kind of pressure on this years team, so until then, I'm not counting too much on getting a lot of TOs off of picks. We'll see what our D can dial up this week.
He is likely to run the hell out of the ball from many different formations in first half until he sees where he has an opportunity.
I'm okay with teams trying to go deep against UK, to be honest. Kentucky was one of the best teams in the SEC last year at preventing deep passes. Only allowed 56 passes to go for 15+ yards on the season. By comparison:
Florida allowed 59
South Carolina allowed 70
Georgia allowed 63
Alabama allowed 72
Mississippi State allowed 77
Mizzou allowed 61
Tennessee allowed 60
Auburn allowed 69
Texas A&M allowed 70
Vanderbilt allowed 63
There were only 3 teams in the SEC that were better at defending passes downfield, and those teams were:
LSU (allowed 47)
Ole Miss (allowed 53)
and Arkansas (allowed 53)
If there's one part of our defense I'm comfortable with, it's the secondary when it comes to defending the pass downfield. Made a lot of interceptions in those scenarios last year, including a couple against South Carolina.
That was because they were too busy running it down UK's throat.
One thing I have to admit is it is refreshing to see a fan base have a lot of confidence and optimism in their team. After last years results, it seems like most SC are so negative about everything right now. It can be depressing to read the board sometimes. It's a lot more fun when the opposing teams fans really expect to win and expect to put up a lot of points. Not quite as fun if they end up being right..
Hardly. You're putting it off as if teams that typically pass the ball 40 times in a game and run it 35 decided to only pass the ball 15 times in a game, and run it 60.
Compare it to Georgia's defense.
Teams ran it against Georgia 526 times, passed it against them 379 times.
Teams ran it against Kentucky 511 times, passed it against us 377 times.
Teams ran it against South Carolina 514 times, passed it against them 390 times.
Teams ran it against Mizzou 531 times, passed it against them 474. (how the hell did so many plays get ran on them?)
Teams ran it against Tennessee 515 times, passed it against them 377 times.
Where is this "special treatment" you're referring to? We got the same running game treatment as more than half of the SEC East. Hell, the only 2 teams in the east that got ran on less than UK is Florida (440), and Vandy (498).
UK's run defense was an issue when it came to not reading the plays quick enough and making tackles closer to the line, but don't penalize the pass defense for the run defense's failures. It had nothing to do with "teams running it down UK's throat". Teams either run, or they pass. It's one or the other. Coaches have to pick, and in this league, more often than not in the case of every team (not just UK), teams pick the run.
Agreed. After the game Saturday, I've been on a tear because quite a few around here are already pulling out the "woe-is-me" card after a bad half of football (despite an outstanding half as well). It becomes annoying, but many of those people don't care. Just want something to complain about, despite having solid reason to be optimistic.
RR30 may be referring to the fact that we finished 12th in the SEC in rushing defense giving up 191 yds per game. The good news SC gave up 212.
Come on now, we have some legion of doomers still around, but there was a bunch of hype around the program preseason and that 2nd half was bad and was against a Sun Belt team, one who has won a lot of games recently, but none over a P5 opponent.
Many people thought an experienced QB would be better and many thought that despite the missing players our depth would be plenty good enough to hold down a Sun Belt team and not let it get that close.
Many are just realists and are honestly going off what they saw and what they believe.
We are talking about beating the Florida's and USC's, etc. First game with that execution definitely tempered some people's outlook.
The game this Saturday will reveal if they really are wrong and complained too early or if you are overly optimistic and found that calling them out as you have been was not warranted. Most likely it will be somewhere in the middle.
You just can't do it can ya?
You make it sound like raising your expectation would be akin to giving up an organ. If Last week's performance was such an abomination to you I would consider jumping out my basement window if I were you.
Probably said that last year too, eh?
He referred to teams not throwing the ball so much because "they were too busy running it down UK's throats". So running the ball effectively would hurt the number of yards a team gains in the pass, how? It doesn't. He simply wanted to find a negative on defense that wasn't actually there. The pass coverage could be bad at times last year, but downfield, we rarely had to worry about pass defense (mostly due to having terrific safeties).
The run defense was bad for giving up yards, but teams didn't just flat out run it more against UK than any other team because of that. Kentucky was simply better at preventing long pass plays than most teams in the SEC.
I do feel confident in our ability to run the football against USC though. I seen nothing that suggests that we shouldn't have success in either the run game, or the pass game. They beefed up in the red zone (although I don't believe it was as much as they suggest because of 2 very, very bad red zone plays by UNC), but UK has also scored on 15 of the last 16 red zone drives (going back to last season).
Not bad considering that we performed very well offensively against very good red zone defenses like Louisville, Mississippi State, and Georgia in that time. Considering that none of them stopped UK in the red zone, that's great.
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I'm just saying that our very poor results in run defense were obvious and that may be the source he is pulling his observation from. I see your stats.
Interesting states. Not to minimize our secondary but I think QB pressures were largely responsible for this number. We had two of the best edge rushers in the conference last year.
In fairness, this conference had a lot of very good pass rushers. Florida had the best DE (really, the best player in the league in Fowler, as well as the best CB in the country). Mizzou had the best pass rushing duo in the conference. Georgia had the best linebackers in the conference. Alabama had the best defensive front. It's not much of an advantage that many teams in this conference didn't have in one way or another. Plenty of ways to pressure a QB.
My comment was to you but not about you. You are being civil and your arguments are rational.
Thanks. I'm a guest on this board and trying to act as such.
I've said from the beginning that if UK puts up 40 then USC loses. I've also said that USC's best day on defense only holds UK to 16 (1TD and 3 FGs) to 24 (3 TDs and a FG) points. It then all comes down to whether or not USC's RBs and young QB can put up enough points. If USC does not have its best day on defense, then it could be a long game . . .
I think some of the confidence/optimism from USC fans comes from actually seeing a defense stop another offense. UNC's second half was Turn Over on Downs, Punt, Interception, Punt, Punt, Interception. I attended every home game last season and was at BOA for UNC. There is a marked difference in execution and talent. Is it enough? We really don't know. But for now, we're just happy to see improvement over last year.
As a true freshman last season Williams touched the ball 110 times. He averaged 6.6 yards per carry, 9.5 yards per catch, and 26.9 yards per kickoff return. With 1,159 all-purpose yards, Williams averaged 10.5 yards every time he touched the ball. He had three touchdown runs of over 50 yards. Only 10 players in the country did that.
I believe our oline can hold up well enough to give Patrick some time to hit on some longer routes. Shooting for 275 yards passing and 210 yards on the ground. We should be able to get near the 500 yard mark in this game. But can we score 7 instead of 3?
I don't know enough about SC's roster to know how impactful the loss of your starting CB is. It at least affects depth. If it does hurt SC then it could be a big day for Towles and guys like Baker, Juice, and Badet. Those 3 are potential 100 yard guys on any given Saturday this year. Would love to see all 3 hit it in one game
I don't know enough about SC's roster to know how impactful the loss of your starting CB is. It at least affects depth. If it does hurt SC then it could be a big day for Towles and guys like Baker, Juice, and Badet. Those 3 are potential 100 yard guys on any given Saturday this year. Would love to see all 3 hit it in one game
thank you for the compliment... i think. lol
for our part we feel we have a really good coach now (close to equal with brooks with better recruiting) and we really like our new OC. i would assume that when you guys hired steve and started to get some talent and expected to win the uf or uga game that probably some of their fans showed up and said the same thing some of your fans are saying to us but as you said... it's refreshing to play a UK team that is optimistic... and believe me, it's good to be a UK fan right now since we've literally had 4 good season in my adult life.
i think sos's comments at his presser says a whole lot. when has steve NOT taken a shot at UK? when has steve NOT given a back handed compliment? never! he actually showed some respect for the talent and play for probably the first time in my life. hell, we even beat you with joker and he still belittled us.
Lammons played a good bit as a true freshman last year. He was second team on the final depth chart for the UNC game and then moved into the starting spot sometime over the two days before the game. So, yes, I think it does hurt us if we cannot play.
The two CB's who will start this week split time last week against UNC.
Only 3 RB's did so. Boom Williams, Nick Chubb, and Zeke Elliot.
Unfortunately for UK's defense.....we somehow manage to make lackluster QB's all of a sudden look like Heisman contenders. I know I'll get flamed by some fellow UK fans as being a troll or a loserville fan, but I challenge my fellow cat fans to prove me wrong on making below avg to avg QB's look fantastic. All they have to do is look back at our game against loserville last season, their starter gets hurt, the 3rd string freshman comes in and has a career game. Not to mention the fact that we can't for the life of the defense stop a dual threat QB. I pray our defense proves me wrong tomorrow night.......but call me skeptical at best.
And our defense is hardly the 'Steel Curtain'......if our DL and olb's don't get any penetration/ pressure on the QB or Wildcat QB, they won't need Mike Davis or Dylan Thompson. I have nightmares thinking about what Cooper could do to our D out of the wildcat. Most on here forget that Cooper actually is a decent passer, which makes him even more dangerous.
What was the starter doing in that game? Bonnafon had 8 yards of passing offense through a quarter and a half (up until his injury). They hardly made him look like a Heisman contender. I want to note that UK held Bonnafon to what was easily the worst QB rating of his season, at -8.20 QBR. Next closest came against Georgia, who held him to 5.86 QBR (also absurd), and his third worst QBR on the season came against Clemson (78.52). That said, he did average a QBR of 118.39.
Against Mississippi State and Dak Prescott (an actual Heisman contender, unless you missed it), UK held Prescott to his 2nd lowest QB rating for the season, with the lowest QB rating of his season coming against Auburn, and his 3rd lowest coming against Ole Miss. I want to point out that the margin between UK and Ole Miss is fairly large.
Against South Carolina, and Dylan Thompson, UK held Thompson to his 2nd lowest QB rating for the season, with the lowest QB rating of his season coming against Florida, and his 3rd lowest coming against Mizzou. There's a decently sized margin between UK and Mizzou here.
Against Vanderbilt, UK held Vanderbilt to a QB rating of 36.56. Still yet, that was the second lowest of the season for Vandy. Their worst QB rating came against Ole Miss, who held them to a QB rating of 36.16. The next closest is Tennessee (76.05), and the margin between UK and Tennessee is huge.
Look, Kentucky may not have had terrific pass coverage last season, I can admit that, but you're so grossly exaggerating it, I can't help but comment on it.
Cooper was there last year as well. Look, they had 3 weapons last season, one huge one at WR, a big one at QB, and a big one at RB. Now, every weapon that they have this season has to be used out of the backfield. They don't have a QB that can effectively get Cooper the ball, and that makes gameplanning a lot easier (see Bonnafon & Louisville). We locked down the run against Radcliff, a very good RB, and Dyer, a proven commodity, while Bonnafon was in. That's because Bonnafon was a QB that could kinda use his legs (better than Mitch at least), but was bad at throwing the football (just like Mitch).
Louisville didn't have a way to get Parker the ball downfield while Bonnafon was in the game, and Kentucky held Louisville to 24 rushing yards, and 8 passing yards through the first quarter of the game as a result. It's different when you can hone in on a certain dimension of a team's offense, especially when one dimension is almost a non-threat. The problem came around when we didn't have any tape whatsoever on Bolin, and he was a QB that could actually throw the football effectively.
I wouldn't expect you to know anything about football, you haven't shown any knowledge of the game in the past 14 posts that you've made. I wouldn't expect you to even be slightly optimistic about UK, you haven't in the past 14 posts that you've made. What I can tell you is that you tend to throw tidbits about your fandom out to us all, and usually, if you have to explain your fandom, you're not a very good fan, or a fan at all.
If all you're going to do is cry and moan about our football team, stop posting here. You've not been here long, we won't miss your constant negative attitude when you leave, and we didn't ask for it when you came here.
This is what I mean about everyone going with the supposedly traditional team, except in this case, USC isn't all that traditional to me.... Fans like bluetick2, and other dawg fans will go against UK, regardless of how the other team played....
SC D is better than you believe and the SC QB will show growth in his second start...
Time will tell. Hopefully, our QB will not throw gimme interceptions to the SC LBers.
Here's two more of those 10 (not bothering to look up the other five - that 10 number was a Mr. College Football supplied number). The following is provided from a nfl.com draft prospectus of the top draft prospects for 2015 :
RB Tevin Coleman, Indiana
Particulars: 6-1, 210, junior.
Buzz: He was one of the best 100-meter sprinters and long-jumpers in the Illinois high school ranks, and he showed off his speed last season. He averaged 7.3 yards per carry and had five rushes of at least 50 yards (tied for second-most nationally), eight of at least 40 yards (tied for the most) and nine of at least 30 yards (tied for fourth-most). He scored 12 rushing TDs -- three of them covered at least 64 yards and six covered at least 40 yards.
RB Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin
Particulars: 6-1, 207, junior.
Buzz: He rushed for 1,609 yards in 2013, 10th-most nationally and second in the Big Ten. He had 206 rushing attempts and averaged 7.8 yards per carry, the highest average for any back with 150-plus carries. Almost 25 percent of his attempts (50) went for at least 10 yards, and he led the nation with three rushes of at least 70 yards. He was tied for first with four rushes of at least 60 yards, tied for fourth with six rushes of at least 40 yards and also tied for fourth with nine rushes of at least 30 yards. In the past two seasons combined, he has seven carries that have covered at least 50 yards.
No question Boom is in rare air and an elite rusher, however, there are others in the same air, but at no time was anyone mistaking him for UNC's back except in the minds of our SC friends.
