ESPN: UK defense projected to do well next year
- Thread starter BlueRaider22
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This is a key statement, and I wish some of our colleagues here would pause and think about what it means. Stoops has raised the bar for our team, and he deserves credit.
It should excite all of us. If he stays healthy Leary will by far be the best QB on the field that day.
I won't predict anything until we're into fall camp. A lot can happen between now and then. We're still pretty young at a lot of offensive positions, so we may rebound hard after victories or hard fought games.
I hope the additions this off-season really make the difference for us, but I'm very concerned about our depth. Other teams can afford the transfers much better than we can because of their depth. We'll see. Love this team, though
Hopefully, with the additions, the offensive line should be better than last season. Although that wouldn't take much. I like Cox at left tackle and the inside should be really, really good. I`m hoping Ford is good enough for the right tackle position, but the key will be injury free. One injury and our line could be in trouble again.
What the younger fans don`t understand is that Stoops had to rebuild the entire football program. It seemed as though he struggled the first 5 years he was here, but he had to rebuild this program from the ground up, plus he was a first time head coach. He had to convince kids to come here and we hadn`t won in their lifetime. He had to learn to be a head coach, build faith in our fan base, increase OUR expectations. He had to rebuild the culture here (in the locker room and the stands). He had to over see the additions and improvement to our facilities ( some high schools had better facilities than we did) our recruiting room was fold out chairs, a white screen and one camera. Then he had to establish a recruiting base and I`ve been screaming Ohio for years, but other coaches surrendered that to Ohio State, ND, Michigan and Michigan State. Not Stoops. Has anyone noticed Michigan States "decline" since Stoops was hired?
When Stoops leaves and hopefully not soon, he will leave us better than when he got here. Maybe we can attract a coach who isn`t towards the end of their career, sorry Claiborne, Curry and Brooks.
Agree. That was a perfect storm for UT. They had that game circled all season, came off their biggest win in forever, was absolutely playing out of their minds at the time, and we had some guys completely blink in prime time.
Ben Christman may get a look at Rtackle in August. Not saying he wins, but the guy is built like a castle and has SEC length. He should be a better pass blocker than Flax or Ford. Ford may be the better run blocker.
Name ONE thing he did his first DECADE here to improve football's facilities. The nearby city college recruits were making fun of our football facilities. While a decent program with a very good coach and great fan base (Averaged 67,000 attendance with a team that finished with a losing record in the SEC) finally had enough and went on strike, we lost a net of 15,000 season ticket holders BEFORE the other SEC football programs saved our athletic department. We owe those fans a lot.
No, I was just paying attention to what an inept job our AD was doing. Still is for that matter. Fortunately, we are in the SEC.
Just a few FACTS for you, dispute them.
And where is all that money coming from? The SEC distribution,, which UK contributed nothing to in mitches first decade on the job. He led us to the five years in a row with NO bowl game and the two TWO win seasons. The OTHER SEC football programs saved UK with the SEC distribution.
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Yes, just like the prior 6 AD’s did.
Fortunately he kept plugging, ingnoring cynics and defeatists, and elevated Kentucky Football to relevance.
I know you are a lot smarter than that.
The money from the OTHER SEC football programs saved our program, NOT the five years in a row without a bowl game AND the two TWO win seasons. And it really helped that Stoops was smart enough to see the opportunity here, even though he started off with the same TWO OOC nobody wins that supposedly the worst head coach in history had. AFTER adding three four stars to our depleted roster, tied for the most four-star recruits in one class in our ADs first DECADE on the job. While Florida that a lot of dumb fans thought we should beat on the road in Jokers first year had about forty four stars and a dozen FIVE stars on their team.
Then the flood of money from the OTHER SEC programs that saw what the MONEY COW was rescued our AD, along with a great recruiting job by our (unfortunate) four star QB. Over THREE times the number of the most four star recruits UK had in our ADs first DECADE. Joker inherited TWO four star SEC level players and the football facilities that the nearby city school recruits made fun of sealed his fate.
Do you remember what our "recruiting room" looked like while the rest of the SEC was feeding the MONEY COW.
"They sposed to be SEC", lol.
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What was our AD supposed to do with a football program that AVERAGED 67,000 capacity for all its home games in 2007 with a team that finished with a losing record in the SEC? That was in the process of losing 15,000 season ticket holders, on top of reducing seating by 7,000 seats. While the rest of the SEC football programs were flooding athletics with the SEC distribution. And NONE of that money was due to UK football.
mitch destroyed our football program while ignoring the coming money cow. But he is a hell of a politician.
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Saying you are out of touch would be an insult to out of touch people.
We got to snap it right first, which I don't feel warm and cozy about either.
Check out Walker Himebauch on-
Rubiolongsnapping.com/player-rankings/profile?player=10183
You will feel better.
LOL. They are selected, outdated "facts", jauk11. The last time you were in Lexington, I-64 ended at Frankfort. Your most delusional assertion is that Mitch Barnhart "ruined" UK football, when everything, and I mean everything, right in front of our faces screams the opposite. But you just can't get it through your head. You are still fighting a battle that ended 20 years ago. So you hijack UK football threads to force your extinct agenda on everyone. I don't have any illusions that you will stop pushing your 20 years too late opinions. Whenever anyone asks you to cut it out, you just push back harder. But you are making an old fool of yourself.
Of course I would like to think that, but 3 undefeated regular seasons in a row isn't likely. Plus we have some question marks, replacing a kicker and who knows how that will go, replacing a QB who was 29-3 as a starter won't be easy no matter how untalented everyone saw Bennett, he had something going on.
I think he was just replying to a comment made about Georgia going undefeated again.
It's a UK football website. Everyone has their own priorities, but moderation is always in order. Some may be interested in GA but a lot of us find it an unwanted distraction from our threads about UK football. If someone wants to start a new thread to discuss GA, I don't see a problem with that. Just please leave the UK threads alone for UK fans to discuss our team.
Those Facts are facts, and they resulted in the worst two years in UK football history, and it has been around since the program started in the early 1990s.
Look, I think you do a great job with recruiting info, I don't want to argue with you, but you haven't even tried to dispute what happened to UK football under his first ten years of doing nothing for football. The flood of money from the other SEC football programs is what rescued our program.
You believe what you believe. You say what you like to say. You engage in selective representation and misrepresentation to sustain your argument because you enjoy doing it. I have seen many posters rebut your "facts" but you always push back harder because you enjoy the argument.
In actual "fact", Mitch Barnhart is not a dictator. Barnhart is part of a management team. Everything Barnhart does at UK must be done in direct cooperation with, and under the direct supervision of, UK's Board of Trustees Committee on Athletics, which has its own chair.
Another actual "fact" is that, prior to Barnhart, UK football hadn't been as successful as it has been under Barnhart's leadership since Bear Bryant was here.
At the time Barnhart took the UK AD job, UK was on NCAA probation and laboring under severe NCAA sanctions because Hal Mumme and Claude Bassett were previously caught cheating. Barnhart not only had to weather the sanctions but also had to clean a lot of problem people and bad habits out of our athletics department. Cleanup jobs of this nature require suspending and rebuilding an entire culture, and it is difficult and expensive to do. That happened 20 years ago. For whatever reason, you are still fighting the fight that Barnhart won here a long time ago, although you have never even laid eyes on UK's current football facilities or sat in Kroger Field even once for a UK football game. Nobody is ever going to convince you that you are making an old fool of yourself. People have gotten tired of trying. I only offer these comments because you are asking. I know you are incapable of seeing the modern UK football program and executive management of athletics for what they actually are, so you will continue to hijack our football threads for your own reasons.
Appreciate your thoughtful comment. When possible, we would like to preserve the value, accuracy, and focus of our UK football threads so that fans who are interested in the topics can participate and get optimal enjoyment of the topic. Hijacked threads are of no value to anyone here except possibly to the hijacker for his own reasons.
I'm sure the defense will be good again especially versus the run. I don't know if it'll be great unless a consistent pass rush emerges since our DB stable is not filled with sure-fire NFL players despite being above average/good SEC players at a minimum.
If I had to make a WAG in May: Top 25 defense in the country, but not Top 15 defense in the country.
- I don't think we'll get a consistent pass rush from the DE spot, nor should one expect it from NT position, but I feel good about Walker drawing double teams on the interior.
- A lot rides on Weaver having his best season to date, and Alex Afari having his breakout year which would set up a lot of NFL chatter heading into 2024.
- I think Wallace/Jackson supplement well blitzing from ILB, but a great defense shouldn't have to rely on that consistently.
If I had to make a WAG in May: Top 25 defense in the country, but not Top 15 defense in the country.
The first job for a defense is to stop the opponent's running game without moving the safeties up into the box. By doing that, the defense forces the hand of the offense. Then, the next thing we want to see is a pass rush off the edge that limits the amount of time the QB can stand in the pocket and watch routes develop.
In the 3-3-5 defense that Coach White plays, the pass rush off the edge typically comes from the Jack LB or from a blitzing DB. Once in a while the Will LB blitzes. The first responsibility of the three down defensive linemen is to occupy blockers and control gaps. But if the NT or DT can push the C or OG back into the pocket, that limits the opportunity for the QB to step up in the pocket and throw accurately on balance and on pace. Deone Walker has been very effective at that skill because he is always stronger and more balanced than the blocker in front of him.
In 2022, UK had the #12 defense in the country and the #2 defense in the SEC. As long as we get solid play from our CBs, and I am optimistic about that, I don't honestly see much chance of a falloff in 2023. FWIW.
“Stopping the run” is becoming an increasing anachronistic platitude given the proliferation of spread offenses. Not to get off topic but to say I’d be curious about the correlation between total rush defense and overall defensive ranking the last five years in CFB compared to 10, 20, and 30 years ago.
Having said that, I don’t disagree with any of your additional context.
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That's true. But every offense probes to see if they can run the football. If you can run the football, you can run the clock while you move the chains. Teams like TN pass to loosen up the safeties and then run when the box is favorable. That style is popular, especially for teams with intelligent QBs who have mastered presnap reads. Even though passing the ball is the quickest way to produce explosive plays, every team must be able to run in first down, short yardage, and red zone situations.
So the first thing a defense needs to do is stop the run without moving the safeties forward into the box. If you can do that, then you can make presnap reads very dificult and make any offense more one dimensional. Even though I think your assessment is accurate.
He is listed as a SR, but he actually still as 2 years of eligibility AFTER 2023.
2020 - Redshirt year (but he can get it back due to the COVID year)
2021 - injury/Redshirt year (didn't play until the final 3 games of the season)
He may not elect to use those, but the fact that that he didn't really play significant snaps until 2022 is in large part the reason time seems to have flown by for us regarding Jackson specifically
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