What other ADs supported football? It sure wasn’t Cliff Hagan, L Ivy or CM!
So sick of fans dwelling on the past
- Thread starter PensacolaBlue
- Start date
Nothing worse than being known as a “basketball school”. It kills me people are proud of that, it’s not a compliment.
Sure it does. It means you're good in one of the top 2 college sports. Far better than not being known as either.
It sure doesn’t help us in football. In the SEC, basketball is a distant second in most cases in importance. Coming from other SEC fans, it’s not a compliment—but rather a statement of an absence in football success.
Ehh, if you look around, SEC football isn't as strong as it once was and basketball has gotten much stronger across the conference. So, obviously, a lot of these SEC schools are seeing the importance of investing in basketball.
Aside from Bama and UGA, no one in the SEC has been consistently good in football for the last decade. LSU and Auburn have had a good season here and there, but usually just average the other years. Considering we have had like the 4th best SEC record the last 4 - 5 years, I am not sure what the other 8 schools worse than us can really say negative about UK.
Fact is, we are a basketball school, maybe the premiere basketball school. Most any athletics dept in the country would give anything to have that. We might as well embrace it.
I agree with your premise, though providing Oregon and their Phil Knight Nike sponsorship and Bobby Bowden/FSU rise, given that they were an all women's teacher's college not too long before his arrival in which he is arguably one of the greatest college football coaches ever, seems like poor analogies. I guess we need a multi-billionaire benefactor or a once-in-a-lifetime coaching hire?
We can punch through the glass ceiling, but we have systemic limitations which hinder that objective. IMO, Stoops has done a spectacular job and others I read posting like he's failing to achieve are ignorant or at least lack nuance in their perspective. Building a team from scratch to bowl contender is a lot easier than the next step which would be consistently achieving 8-9 wins and occasionally playing in a NY6 bowl. SEC East/Playoff aspirations come even after that. Stoops will get us to the NY6 level which will likely get is in to a 12 team playoff. Given the systemic limitations, I don't foresee UK reaching elite level, other than an occasional outlier year.
[QUOTE="StoopsIsPathetic, post: 12244557, member: 141648
Fact is, we are a basketball school, maybe the premiere basketball school. Most any athletics dept in the country would give anything to have that. We might as well embrace it.
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Name 1 other SEC schools that would trade sports histories with us.
Fact is, we are a basketball school, maybe the premiere basketball school. Most any athletics dept in the country would give anything to have that. We might as well embrace it.
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Name 1 other SEC schools that would trade sports histories with us.
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I would go with Vandy, USC, MIZZOU, both Mississippi schools, Arkansas, A&M, UT.
I would go with Vandy, USC, MIZZOU, both Mississippi schools, Arkansas, A&M, UT.
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Vandy yeah. UT has two consensus NC’s in football and NO WAY would they trade our BB and FB for theirs.
When were those nattys again?
They sure want to be us awful bad in basketball.
So same mistakes every year isn't referencing the past? Makes sense if you have an uncledad I guess...
Low population state with a miniscule number of black citizens, which comprise the vast majority of SEC starters, therefore produces very few SEC quality players in comparison to others southern states. Also, a poor state with fewer per capita wealthy citizens who can afford to properly fund an SEC football program, plus we are the only SEC school whose basketball team competes for those donor dollars.
Those were the same arguments people made 12 years ago to assert that Kentucky could never compete in the SEC and that 6-7 wins and a Liberty bowl should be the goal of a successful season. Not going to take a deep dive into this line but just briefly first of all recruiting at successful programs is now done primarily on a national basis much more so than a local in-state basis. Successful programs recruit most of their players from out of state regardless of how much "home grown" talent they produce. Players aren't concerned that much about playing for home state U as much as they are about finding a program that is the right fit, a need, and where they can develop. One could arguing that Kentucky's close proximity to numerous major metro areas is a recruiting plus not a minus. Donner money = facilities. Our facilities are comparable to the best in the country. More donner money at this point would only be of incremental value at best. We are middle of the pack on NIL money. These aren't reasons for any perceived lack of success they are just excuses.
I didn't say it couldn't be overcome. The question was what systemic hurdles do we have. It is always easier to keep a blue chip player in state than to pull him out of another state with a higher quality in state football program. This staff knows KY produces extremely low per capita blue chippers, so they designed a recruiting process to overcome that systemic deficit. If we produced players per capita like the rest of the South, we would likely be scratching the East Champion ceiling.
Those are historical challenges but I continue to make the point that people need to open their eyes to that while some challenges still exist, and do in most jobs, the reality is today is as good as it’s ever been to be the coach at UK…that doesn’t make it perfect but comparing our circumstances to decades ago is faulty.
In state talent will always be an issue. But Ohio has always had fb talent that stoops has tapped into but Nashville to the south has made dramatic strides in the last decade in terms of number and quality of player coming out. It’s also a very transient area where people aren’t tied to ‘state u’. TN now puts out comparable numbers of p5/d1 players to Ohio. It’s also the day of the transfer portal where you can go get some guys that went somewhere a notch above UK on talent but culturally it didn’t work or need more development or whatever the case.
The modern bowl era has only existed for 25-30 years so when we say things like ‘most bowl games‘ or wins or other accomplishments we are usually talking etc it’s really only comping the last 30 years with half of the teams getting to bowls and getting 12 games on the books with the given non p5 conference games against middling teams in their conference that are hand picked to get w’s. Schools didn’t need to schedule those type games in the pre bowl era when only 12-13 bowls existed because it took 8 or usually 9 wins just to be involved in the discussions. So if you weren’t a top 2-3 team in the conference or have a chance to get there it wasn’t a benefit to get easy w’s.
No we don’t have a huge donor base and that will come into play with NIL some but if you look at a previous post of mine in this thread I think it stuns many people to realize we now have the 7th biggest budget in the sec. We are above UT. At this point we can’t really complain that much about how much money is available to us but We can certainly complain about how the money is getting used. I don’t think most people realize how much the money circumstances have evolved with this era of tv contracts and whatnot.
Case in point Oregon. They started competing with everybody because they were handed a ton of money to go out and spend to overcompensate for the lack of all the natural recruiting base stuff so they overspent to get what they could and inflate facilities. But now with tv deals everybody has some money to spend to overcome and now it becomes ‘yeah there are still a few elite schools’ but from beyond there it’s who is going to be smart about how to use what they have because, while some have more than others, a lot of schools have something to spend.
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Oregon started out with the same kind of method Kentucky did before they blew up and it would have been real nice if brooks foundation wasn’t ruined but instead was infused with money like oregons was! Who knows where Kentucky would be.
You are kind of on point with the money and how it is spent, Kentucky may be 7th in overall budget but is still 10th in football expenses and well below most of the ones ahead of them.
The only teams that spend less are Missouri, Miss State, and presumably Vanderbilt, while South Carolina spends about the exact same.
The school could spend more on football sure, but they probably are afraid of what will happen if they are not a “basketball school”
I think and it seems like you believe there should be plenty of money to focus on both, but unfortunately even if the school doubles it’s budget they cannot use that money to buy players so that becomes a modern day issue that your Oregon example did not have to deal with.
It all is complicated, but at least at this point there is a such thing as Kentucky football fans and hopefully the passion helps grow the program.
When Mark Stoops got here in 2013, we had been dominated by FL, GA, TN and SCar under Brooks and JP. Stoops turned the FL and SCar series around. Although Stoops has had several disappointing losses to TN, the talent levels of the two programs have become more even and TN is only a 3.5 point favorite on Saturday. GA remains a problem but GA hasn't lost a game to anyone in more than 2 seasons. We aren't the only SEC program that can't seem to beat GA. Lots of our fans are currently mad at Stoops, but that is totally reactionary. After we beat FL last month, almost everyone was happy. Stoops' sin is that he hasn't won the SEC East or gone undefeated. Any data-driven opinion must acknowledge that Stoops is the best thing that has happened to UK football since Bear Bryant. That there is so much confusion about this only shows how many young posters and emotion-driven posters are involved in the criticisms. The internet gives every username an opportunity to post public opinions whether or not they have given the subject a thorough vetting. All you have to do is look at threads that get started here during games to see how impulsive and football-naive many posters really are.
At the same time, we also have some very smart posters here who understand football at a high level. That keeps it interesting.
Is Stoops perfect? Of course not. Kirby Smart attended and played football for GA, so that fit is magic. AL handed Nick Saban a record contract at that time to leave the Miami Dolphins, and there probably weren't more than a couple of college programs at most that could possibly have pulled Saban back out of the NFL. IMO Lane Kiffin will not stay at Ole Miss much longer. Kiffin, who was born in MN and played at Fresno, comes from a family of football coaches. His girlfriend (who is a solid 10 BTW) lives and works in Dallas. So Kiffin has no ties to Oxford other than his current job. Kiffin turned down Auburn, but that just shows he has learned a lot about the SEC. And I doubt Josh Heupel will stay at TN long either, but that is JMO. Outside of those four coaches, there isn't another current SEC coach that a knowledgeable SEC football fan in our fan base could seriously prefer over Stoops. People can say they would rather have a coach with an offensive background. But Smart and Saban have defensive backgrounds. Assuming Liam Coen can recapture whatever qualities (hint -Wandale Robinson) made him successful in 2021, what Stoops needs now is a new OL coach, a new WR coach, continuation of the growth trend in his recruiting budget at UK, and to hold his 2024 recruiting class together. Stoops' 2024 class is excellent, and anyone who dismisses it simply on the basis of Rivals class rankings doesn't understand recruiting. UK is lucky to have Stoops. Anyone can be happy or unhappy as they choose to be, but context really helps.
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I absolutely agree with you. The best and worst part is fans are unhappy with 7-5 type seasons when most of us growing up that would be a miracle season.
Stoops himself is more upset than any fan here is and if the ship gets righted then Kentucky will show improvement and be better than they have ever been historically as long as stoops stays.
Sure will.
Let's talk some more about "if the ship gets righted". On this board, solutions that are being offered from various corners range from benching Devin Leary to firing Stoops and Barnhart. Our fans are all over the place, and I suspect that part is fairly typical of most fan bases. As I said earlier, I believe Mark Stoops is the best thing that has happened to UK football since Bear Bryant, but there needs to be another revision of the coaching staff. I believe Stoops and Barnhart will have to dismiss Yenser and Woodward, then pony up and hire major coaching upgrades at those positions. I am not sold on Frank Buffano either. None of those three is making significant contributions as recruiters (notwithstanding Caleb Redd, who has a chance), and all of their positions have been underperforming.
In the short term, I think we clearly have to stick with Leary at QB. Fans who want Leary benched have no earthly idea how Sheron would perform against this schedule. Fans are just feeling restless and reacting. But coaches cannot afford to make restless decisions. Coaches have to teach and develop players, then formulate workable game plans. People can say whatever they want about Leary, but Leary has passed for almost 7,000 yards as a Power 5 player. You don't just throw that away. The player has to be taught and developed. If his mechanics need tweaking, then Coach Coen can tweak them. But Leary will play a lot better if our OL and receivers play better, and some people are still overlookimg that part of it. And that brings me back around to the issues with Yenser and Woodward.
Our defense has not played up to expectations either. We still have a good defense, but there are problems on the edges. CBs have not played very well. Even Max Hairston gets beat too often, and Andru Phillips had a really bad game against MO. I have been disappointed so far with JQ Hardaway, whose playing time has been decreasing. I hate to say it but JJ Weaver has not had the kind of senior season I thought he would. Help is on the way in our 2024 class, but there are players on our current roster who can contribute too. Coach White has had a bye week and it will be interesting to see what he has done about the defensive edges. More than any other team, TN puts stress on the CBs and LBs. We have to be ready for this.
Agree, also according to Van Hiles Kentucky receivers have dropped 18 catchable balls in 7 games. I don't know where that would rank but you have have to figure it would be one of the worst teams in the country with that stat, and that doesn't get into incorrect routes, wrong angles etc. that Stoops has mentioned.
However for the simple minded it works like this "passing game bad, QB bad" "team lose, coach bad" no analytical thinking just a 3 second anger-based reaction.
I would simplify things, offensive line doesn’t give enough time for long developing plays and hasn’t for years, also in person it was easier to see that most of the time our receivers on deep routes are covered no matter how much time they have.
Have to make Leary a running threat to keep the defense honest and run more slants, tight end releases and throws to Davis. Work the defense with that for a while and then when they get complacent take a deep shot.
Never go away from davis until the other team shows they can stop him
Or he has to come out wouldn’t hurt.
Fans complain about opening up the offense, but that first play of the third drive in the Missouri game just as well have been the last one when we tried a go route to brown. No team has to respect our deep ball until that changes you have to adjust your play calling.
tell me you aren't really saying if posters believe our qb has been bad this year they are "simple minded"?
Yes. But I think Coen already has.
Actually, we have completed a number of longer passes in 2021-23. I could go back and look at those numbers, but I know this is correct from memory. Offhand, I recall the long pass to Wandale in the 4th quarter of the Citrus Bowl, the long post throw to Dane Key in Gainesville last year, several long completions to BB, Dingle's 59 yard reception against Akron. There were others.
Playing with fire there. He isn't exactly Lynn Bowden. And once he gets dinged up, just remember what that did to Levis last year.
I have an observation. Both Stoops and Coen have said they want a balanced offense. I will just add, almost all successful Power 5 offenses are balanced between run and pass. But when we have thrown on first downs this year, we usually end up behind the chains. A lot of this has been on receivers dropping passes or running poor routes, but the end result has been inability to extend drives and Coen being forced to rely on Ray Davis. This makes Ray's season all the more impressive, but it has allowed our opponents to move a safety up into the box and stifle our offense, as GA and MO both did. We can't run a balanced offense unless our receivers can run the right route and catch the football. People can say whatever they want about Leary, but Leary would be more effective if our receivers weren't among the nation's worst in drops. And unless that gets fixed, we are forced into a one dimensional offense that can be stopped by loading the box. When this many talented receivers regress at the same time, the WR coach needs to be replaced.
IDTS. You can do this against Akron, or even FL, but not against TN or AL. The problem is that any future opponent looks at the tape and sees GA and MO stopping Ray by loading a safety up into the box. Even FL did it in the 2nd half and people forget it worked for them although too late. You can't just run Ray until he is stopped, because SEC defenses will make adjustments and stop him. Pretty soon, everyone will load the box against us from the opening kickoff. We have to be more balanced. Right now, our season hangs on getting our receivers untracked and more effective. If we just can't do that for some reason, then at least coach Leary up to be more successful on checkdowns (which he hasn't done very well) and throw more passes to the RBs, Dingle, and Cummings. And replace Woodward.
Coen knows these longer pass plays have to be called to keep the defense honest.. But they have to be mixed with seam passes, targets in the middle of the defense, outs, swing passes, screen passes, and an aggressive running game as well. Our offense has to be balanced and apply pressure all over the field, and our coaches can't stop teaching and developing. There is no reason our weaknesses cannot be improved. It isn't like we lack talent.
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No, he hasn't lived up to the all-SEC, Heisman hype, preseason billing, but to blame all of the passing issues on Leary is myopic to be polite.
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I don't disagree with anything you wrote, though I would add it doesn't challenge anything I wrote either. We have arguably the lowest floor of all the state schools in the SEC due to the systemic issues I mentioned. Stoops has managed to overcome them and take us to a level UK has not seen since since Bear left, but the low floor limitations means that they have to work 50% harder/smarter than the staffs at the elite schools, just to reach parity. I worry about what happens when Stoops and Marrow leave.
Also, your comment about UK having 7th biggest budget highlights my comment about basketball competing with football for dollars. We are the only school that has a basketball recruiting budget that meets or exceeds the football recruiting budget and that is after tripling the football budget over the last 10 years. Mitch allows the basketball team to spend as much/more than the football team when they typically only recruit about 5 players vs 25+ for football. Unti we fund the bell cow like the rest of the conference, we are going to be stuck looking up from below.
My observations were from the Missouri game that I watched in person very high up lol. Didn’t see any open receivers on deep routes except the brown shot and Leary overthrew him. Middle routes resulted in drops or no one being open.
Hard to compare anything to the Wandale year because the two years following that seem to show that he was the offense. No one could keep him from getting open whether running a mid route, small route or going deep.
I understand Leary getting hurt would be detrimental to the team, but if the team plays like they did the last 3 quarters of the Missouri or the Georgia game you are looking at 5 wins anyways.
I am not saying turn Leary into Bowden, but an occasional qb run can be effective at keeping a defense honest.
I am always the optimist or I wouldn’t have been a Kentucky football fan my whole life so I am hoping for a revamped and very successful offense starting this Saturday!
I, too, strongly tend toward the optimistic point of view. But I believe I have good reasons to be optimistic about UK football. I do not hesitate to point out perceived problems such as the incomplete jobs being done by Yenser and Woodward. But I keep a perspective. When a team is 5-2 with its 3rd consecutive win over FL, that isn't the time to throw in the towel like some of our fans have been doing lately.
To my eye, the main problems with the MO game were-
Our players took their feet off the pedal in the 4th quarter and lost ugly and sloppy.
MO showed than an average or slightly above average SEC defense can stop UK's running game by moving a safety up into the box, and UK can't (couldn't against MO, anyway) take advantage over the top.
UK's defense hasn't made progress (yet) in covering checkdown passes, and open field tackling on checkdown receivers has been unsatisfactory.
Those three problems are evident on the tape, so every future UK opponent will see them. That means we have to develop an effective passing game, get defensive eyes on the opposing QB and all eligible receivers, get pressure on the QB, tackle better, and play like a team that is determined to win. It was a good time for a bye week. Is that enough? IDK. TN will put pressure on our LBs and CBs. TN will force Leary to play under pressure in the pocket. There are tactical ways to deal with that. On paper, though, it is a challenging matchup for us. And yet, I know we have the talent to beat them if we play our game. Execution and sloppiness have been problems for this team all season except for the FL game. FL didn't have a smart game plan. TN will, but this isn't 2022 TN. I would say this. Run Ray Davis on the edges and throw the football to him occasionally. Don't try to run straight ahead against TN's strength. Move the pocket. Don't try to force Leary to stand in the pocket more than a couple of counts. And Coach White will have to disguise the LB and S assignments pre-count. If Milton can read what our LBs and safeties are going to do, he will exploit that just like Hendon Hooker exploited it last year. But if UK's coaches have studied the 2nd half of the TN-AL game, the tactical answers for beating TN are right there to see.
To be fair basketball only takes two or three great players and you are a contender . Also doesn't hurt that you have the name recognition in basketball like Bama does in football. I agree, the right coach could win here. Sanders has taken Colorado from a one win team to competing against the big dogs in one year.
If you think Sanders is competing against “big dogs” then you’re buying hype!
Now, I agree Deon has brought the hype to Colorado and that’s a hard place to hype up. He may very well recruit and make Colorado a winner. They got beat by 1 win Stanford team!
History will write about Stoops accomplishing achievements that few football experts thought was possible.
Are 8 wins our glass ceiling with a few 9-10 wins sprinkled in? I honestly don’t know. What I do know from the last 20 years is that there are about 6-8 SEC teams in the same exact boat. TN, SC, Ole Miss, MissSt, Mo, Fla, TxAM, and Ark all fall into same category. LSU is one notch above with 9-10 wins and a shot at CFP 1-2 times a decade.
UK faces many legitimate obstacles. (Some are mentioned in thread, and there are many others.)
Here’s a simple version that deserves its on thread. Today’s football relies heavily on your QB. Stoops knows this and believes Coen is best chance to attract and develop a great QB.
Ex - Look at Belichick after Brady, Payton after Brees, Coach O after Burrow, etc …
Ga is the exception. Bennett was a “good” college QB, but they have been loaded on both sides of the ball!
I disagree with OP about ignoring the real challenges to UK football. I agree with those who believe we can still climb another rung on the ladder. But, I believe it will require identifying, recruiting, and developing generational QB talent! The good news is that it can be accomplished. The bad news is that everyone else is looking for this same QB!
The Georgia team couple years ago is what a team looks like with generational talent all across the field on both sides of the line.
The best talent at multiple positions certainly helps! But, I think great QB play is want will separate one team from the pack. Tennessee’s QB last year is a perfect example of what can happen when there is special chemistry between the OC and QB.
So do I, but I also believe Cutter Boley and Stone Sanders have a chance. I still believe in Liam Coen. Leary is an example of a highly recruited QB whose career has been limited to some extent by injuries, performance of WRs, and multiple systems. It takes arm talent, a high football IQ, talent at other skill positions, and good health, as well as the chemistry you mentioned. It doesn't come together like that very often.
I read we rank last in P5 in drops and Key was worst in the D1 with highest number of drops.
If you watch the film with a critical eye, you will see that QB is not the primary problem in the passing game. Our receivers seem to have no ability to discern zone vs man-to-man defense and how to attack that. I've watched dozens of passes thrown to our receivers, while playing against zone defense, and Leary throws behind them because he's expecting them to settle in the open area of the zone and they sprint through it like they are playing against man defense. Below I have attached a route tree. I encourage you to record to go back and watch our past games and see if you can find more than a couple of properly run routes each game. We run loops and questions marks mostly, no sharp angled cuts. As a QB, you expect your receivers to run the same route every time, which build confidence, so you can then trust them to be in a certain spot and the QB can throw them open. Since Leary can't trust where the receivers are going to be, he's holding on to the ball longer, taking more sacks and throwing after the window has closed leading to all systems failures. He bears responsibility on certain individual plays, but I put the majority of passing game issues on the receivers.
KY doesn't have any generational talent, they have a few very talented players. A coach who plays not to lose and gets paid 9mill to do it. Not sure why everyone thanks this team(overall) is that good? Davis, wallace, walker and a few others. If its his most talented team then whats that say about his coaching? They beat 4 garbage teams and a decent UF team, got curb stomped by UGA and boat raced by mizzo. I expect the same tomorrow and against bama and maybe u6. MSU and SClite could be losses also.
The past plays a huge role in what people think and their outlook(5 wins since 81). UK is not top 3 in the east, they are middle of the pack 4 or worse. Take out the cupcakes and UK doesn't make bowls any years, they are not now and not in the near future going to be a east contender.
Your attitude toward our football team is depressing. .Apparently you are not a fan of our coaching staff. You can believe what you want, but Stoops took over a 2-10 team and a weak roster and has subsequently become the winningest coach in UK football history. You can discount his accomplishments and disregard his successes. But I remember when no UK football fan would even dare to dream of a recruiting class like our 2022 and 2024 classes, or even dream about winning bowl games. Not too long ago, were one screwup away from the NCAA's death penalty. The Snell and Wandale teams both won 10 games including Citrus Bowl wins over ranked B10 opponents. If that means nothing to you, c'est la vie.
I disagree with you about our current talent. Sometimes fans don't appreciate how good a player is until after he leaves. We have some special players on this team and some who will probably do well in the NFL. I actually think that is obvious, and it is the reason why some of us are frustrated now.
I have suggested that Yenser and Woodward should be replaced. But I would not throw the baby out with the bath water.
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