I did not think we'd get to 6 win minimum seasons until next year. We are exactly where I thought we'd be. We are a VERY young team all around. I believe UK fans will be pleasantly surprised in the coming years.
Be Honest, Where Did You Think We'd Be Now? I'm With Stoops.
- Thread starter medeski7
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I thought we had a real good shot at 7... more because that is the easiest schedule we've had in over 15 years. Defense was close to what I thought but O is pitiful. Still no identity or style that you can "UK is a ----"style offense.
We didn't have a good Jr and sr. Class who could have helped with leadership's
For one thing they need to get rid of that air raid crap. Pass the ball yes but not with the air raid system.
I thought we would go to a bowl this year and honestly we should have.
Thought we'd push for a bowl. Record doesnt shock me. But the product on the field toward the end of the season was what gives me cause for concern.
Until the offense runs something more than a vanilla,predictable scheme,we're doomed to 3 and outs! You would think that if you're paid big bucks,you could implement a more successful strategy then up the middle run,or a fade to the outside pass!?
Not quite where I thought we'd be but not overly surprised. I thought we would see a more efficient team, better offensive production and savvier play calling. I thought 7 wins was possible, especially after Auburn started crapping the bed early in the season. So there was a level of disappointment in those respects, but I'm going to give Stoops more time and hope he makes necessary staff adjustments to help alleviate the problems. I also hope he starts using his brother at Oklahoma more as a mentor and starts modeling things after their success. If Mark is worried about the offense scoring too fast, he needs to look at his Bobs program and realize that a solid defense can thrive with a high powered offense and he gives Dawson more free reign to run the offense as he sees fit.
Predicted 5-7 coming out of spring but changed to 6-6 by the start of the season. Knew D was pretty weak but thought the O would be better. Disappointed by blow outs by unranked teams.
They're pretty much where I thought they'd be a year ago at this time but the gap between UK and upper echelon SEC teams is absolutely huge. Tough to be optimistic about '16 given the DL UK will be forced to field.
They're pretty much where I thought they'd be a year ago at this time but the gap between UK and upper echelon SEC teams is absolutely huge. Tough to be optimistic about '16 given the DL UK will be forced to field.
Thank you!! Geez here we go again watering down expectation to suit our coaches performance once again.
1. 6 wins wasn't that hard.
- 3 OOC cupcakes, Vandy was pretty bad, UL has worsened and was at home, Auburn was down and at home, Mizzou was worst offense in P5 and was at home, UGA was way down, USC was down, etc... 100% UK should have gotten 6 wins.
2. I'd have liked to see our QB grow into his Jr year. Instead he regressed and is gone and we sort of start over. This is the path as to how the program improved under JLO, Woodson and even Hartline. The QB is huge at UK...and you take your lumps early in their careers but as they grow the QB spots lead the program to better seasons as each of those did. To watch Towles crumble was a failure of Pat...but also of Stoops/Dawson.
3. Defense was always a long shot w/o Bud and Zadarius. In the end, this 3-4 scheme is looking like a hot turd and next year looks even worse.
The problem with this year is missing the bowl game...but in year 3...did one aspect of the team really improve form last year? Maybe CB with Westry is all I can come up with.
I felt like we'd get 6 wins and beat UL. Then I felt like we would progress to 7 wins on a fairly regular basis. Now I think we'll be stuck on 5 wins until ?
6-7 wins this season and we should have had 6 minimum. Next year, with a harder schedule, we need to get to a bowl game. If we don't make a bowl next year we will be back to recruiting in the 35-50 range and that will never get us over the hump.
Thought we would be 7-5, no blowouts in the 5 losses, Towles would have made the leap to being statistically one of the best QB's in the conference if not the country. Pretty disappointed with the results as several on our schedule turned out to be far worst and far more beatable than I thought preseason, like Auburn & Georgia.
the AD is in full agreement with you. so much so he locked the school into a gargantuan buyout so large we couldn't consider a coaching change. the AD can now comfortably watch Cal run basketball while he tinkers with non revenue things while, hey, his football hands are tied.
Yep, thought we could eke out 6 maybe 7 wins, but IMO the trick play in the Vandy game was the back breaker and a metaphor for the season. I'm seeing a disturbing trend of folding down the stretch with these last two seasons.
From a Stoops defender: no excuse for not winning at least 6 games in year 3 against a once in a generation schedule. We won't have a schedule set up like that again for a long time, if the past is any indication. And that is a shame.
So, I can't even say "well, it's not the number of wins or results that are bothersome, it's the way we lost" - because it's both. Now mind you, this is all about year 3. For the first 2 years I had no real complaints and thought we were on track, doing about what I expected. And really, it's just a last half of year 3 kind of thing. Something happened after the Auburn game. I honestly thought we'd lose all 3 of MSU, UT and UGa, and I thought in at least 2 of those we'd get housed. Just bad matchups. So I wasn't really surprised when that happened. But......while that was going on, I fully expected to bounce back and beat a bad Vandy team and then to beat a UofL team which was evenly matched with us, but we had 'em at home. What I failed to expect was that the 3 beatings would cause a firestorm outside the team, and that in response to that there was a firestorm in the lockerroom (either caused by the 3 game losing streak or it was already there and the adversity just revealed it).
Which ever. Point is, we went in the tank. On the one hand, I cannot think Stoops is as bad a coach as we saw down the stretch - it makes more sense to me to assume there was just dysfunction and chaos on this team, and in that environment it's pretty easy to look like a bad coach. On the other hand, you can righteously say that he's the coach, he's responsible for the lockerroom and how his team and coaching staff gets along. So, whether you watch the team and say "he looks like a bad coach because the team is disorganized and poorly coached" or you say "he looks like a bad coach because of a toxic lockerroom, which is his responsibility" - either way, you get to the same place.
I said in his second year, seeing the way he was recruiting like no one else had ever done, that if Mark Stoops couldn't get us over the hump, we ought to just give up football. So this year is beyond disappointing to me......
So, I can't even say "well, it's not the number of wins or results that are bothersome, it's the way we lost" - because it's both. Now mind you, this is all about year 3. For the first 2 years I had no real complaints and thought we were on track, doing about what I expected. And really, it's just a last half of year 3 kind of thing. Something happened after the Auburn game. I honestly thought we'd lose all 3 of MSU, UT and UGa, and I thought in at least 2 of those we'd get housed. Just bad matchups. So I wasn't really surprised when that happened. But......while that was going on, I fully expected to bounce back and beat a bad Vandy team and then to beat a UofL team which was evenly matched with us, but we had 'em at home. What I failed to expect was that the 3 beatings would cause a firestorm outside the team, and that in response to that there was a firestorm in the lockerroom (either caused by the 3 game losing streak or it was already there and the adversity just revealed it).
Which ever. Point is, we went in the tank. On the one hand, I cannot think Stoops is as bad a coach as we saw down the stretch - it makes more sense to me to assume there was just dysfunction and chaos on this team, and in that environment it's pretty easy to look like a bad coach. On the other hand, you can righteously say that he's the coach, he's responsible for the lockerroom and how his team and coaching staff gets along. So, whether you watch the team and say "he looks like a bad coach because the team is disorganized and poorly coached" or you say "he looks like a bad coach because of a toxic lockerroom, which is his responsibility" - either way, you get to the same place.
I said in his second year, seeing the way he was recruiting like no one else had ever done, that if Mark Stoops couldn't get us over the hump, we ought to just give up football. So this year is beyond disappointing to me......
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I thought and still think we should be at least capable of 6 wins and a minor Bowl.
I thought we would be progressing at a fair rate instead of regressing.
I thought we would appear to be much more organized, disciplined and talented than we show.
Guess I thought wrong.
I thought we would be progressing at a fair rate instead of regressing.
I thought we would appear to be much more organized, disciplined and talented than we show.
Guess I thought wrong.
Record not the issue as I thought it would be difficult to make a bowl. However, as the season unfolded, I was not pleased with disorganization at times, lack of adjustments during games, special teams play, and our energy on the field.
For me personally the wins don't bother me nearly.as much as the seemingly total mismanagement on the field andl the head scratching play calling..just don't think Stoops can do this...I just dont
Considering the schedule this year, we should have hit 6 wins and a bowl. If we even got a 1:1 TD:INT ratio, we would have done it. If we didn't go into a tailspin and just played okay football after our start, we would have done it. It's less that we ended 5-7 and more about how we ended 5-7, as a dumpster fire on wheels careening into a tar pit...
By and large I think most people had a pretty good handle on their expectations before this season. Most thought we would be a 6-7 game winner and I think that was fair. Yet again our season played out so that we just needed to hang together in order to win the critical game at the end of the season. For me that was the Vandy game. If we had beaten Vandy I think we would have beaten UL. What nobody could predict was the team breaking up into factions like it did. I think some of that was the players themselves had such high expectations that when we lost some games (UF then Auburn) they lost their energy and focus and then to make matters worse starting splintering. I don't think this young coaching staff knew how to handle that problem.
This tells it like it is,if you follow UK football you just can't get around the points here.Six wins were the bare minimum for a decent season 7 were there for the taking ,yet we managed to piss the rare opportunity away.This year is almost an exact repeat of Joker's first year,everything was in place for 7 or 8 wins that year and he barely got 6.
Stoops may be effectively finished at UK but his ability to recruit might save him if he holds the incoming class together and wins 6 or 7 next year.I think that is the only chance he has at this point
Have to love all these people suddenly coming out saying they're satisfied with this year's debacle of a season because they only predicted 4-8 records. Where were you people in the offseason? I don't remember seeing any of you. And if we're regressing this badly in year 3 why aren't you up in arms like the rest of us that actually care about this program? Tell me, what have some of you optimistic folks seen that makes you think that next year will be better (or even as good)? It's an honest question. The general consensus seems to be just to give Stoops another couple years with no real reasoning as to why, but I shutter to think where this program will be at in two years with Stoops and his band of assistant coaches leading the charge.
I'm not ready to jump ship and I'm holding back on trashing the staff too much because I agree with the basic premise that this rebuild will take awhile.
That said, having to squeak by ULL and EKU coupled with the clown show at Vandy and the choke job with UofL are not positive signs for the future. The late-in-the-year failures on basic stuff like lining up correctly is also very troubling.
I am in full-on wait-and-see mode right now; not ready to drink the poison but also not ready to get too excited for next year.
It's not the record...it's the way the team performed and the overall lack of play making...
there wouldn't be so much unrest if we competed with Miss St, UGA, and UT...if those games are good competitive football games and we lose by 7-10...fine...but they weren't...
it wouldn't be so tough if the staff remotely looked like they knew how to game plan for a dual threat QB...I mean i've never seen anything like it...Dobbs and Dak have beaten us by themselves two years straight...
it's so simple...game plan for those two players and execute properly...and we might have 2 more wins both last year and this year...it's not like those two teams had players making plays all over the place...they both had 1 player that if you slowed down you could beat them...
folks would't be so up in arms if we had WRs who made plays...10 receiving TDs for the whole group is unacceptable...if we had a thousand yard back that could sniff 12 rushing TDs...an offensive line that could give our QBs time...
EKU shouldn't have given us a game...
obviously Vandy loss is unacceptable...
though UL was a toss up...it would have been more acceptable if they won because they got the ball last or maybe a bad bounce of a fumble...we didn't compete in the second half...and no adjustments were made for the running QB...
it is simply mind boggling...that after two years of Dobbs and Dak...this staff had absolutely nothing for Lamar Jackson...
there wouldn't be so much unrest if we competed with Miss St, UGA, and UT...if those games are good competitive football games and we lose by 7-10...fine...but they weren't...
it wouldn't be so tough if the staff remotely looked like they knew how to game plan for a dual threat QB...I mean i've never seen anything like it...Dobbs and Dak have beaten us by themselves two years straight...
it's so simple...game plan for those two players and execute properly...and we might have 2 more wins both last year and this year...it's not like those two teams had players making plays all over the place...they both had 1 player that if you slowed down you could beat them...
folks would't be so up in arms if we had WRs who made plays...10 receiving TDs for the whole group is unacceptable...if we had a thousand yard back that could sniff 12 rushing TDs...an offensive line that could give our QBs time...
EKU shouldn't have given us a game...
obviously Vandy loss is unacceptable...
though UL was a toss up...it would have been more acceptable if they won because they got the ball last or maybe a bad bounce of a fumble...we didn't compete in the second half...and no adjustments were made for the running QB...
it is simply mind boggling...that after two years of Dobbs and Dak...this staff had absolutely nothing for Lamar Jackson...
After the 14 season ending with 6 losses I had this season at 4/5 wins.
I didn't buy the O-Line was better because it was a year older crap.
I didn't buy the same for the D-Line.
Next season looks like another 4/5
Like it or not Stoops and staff are on the job training.
Now the question is can Stoops learn how to be a good HC at the expense of UK.
Truly, if we do not see improved coaching next season the stands will be empty by years end.
And the circle begins again, looking for another HC, 3/4 year crap shoot.
I didn't buy the O-Line was better because it was a year older crap.
I didn't buy the same for the D-Line.
Next season looks like another 4/5
Like it or not Stoops and staff are on the job training.
Now the question is can Stoops learn how to be a good HC at the expense of UK.
Truly, if we do not see improved coaching next season the stands will be empty by years end.
And the circle begins again, looking for another HC, 3/4 year crap shoot.
I was thoroughly disappointed in the discipline and attention to detail aspect of our team. At UK, we have got to play mistake free football to ever compete in the SEC. The fact that our team regressed throughout the season is very hard for me to accept.
All of the hope that Coach Stoops' improved recruiting brought has been diminished by the incompetence from his coaching staff this past season. I am amazed at the lack of fundamentals our team displayed this season. Blocking, tackling, catching the ball, alignment, getting off of blocks, reading the opponents offense, play calling, penalties at crucial times, etc.
Winning 6 games against this schedule should have been a given. Coach Stoops has a lot to fix between now and Labor Day weekend 2016.
All of the hope that Coach Stoops' improved recruiting brought has been diminished by the incompetence from his coaching staff this past season. I am amazed at the lack of fundamentals our team displayed this season. Blocking, tackling, catching the ball, alignment, getting off of blocks, reading the opponents offense, play calling, penalties at crucial times, etc.
Winning 6 games against this schedule should have been a given. Coach Stoops has a lot to fix between now and Labor Day weekend 2016.
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You were probably one of the Brooks bashers calling for him to be fired during and after his third season. Then we went to five straight bowls.
Brooks was a cagey old veteran but It took Brooks three years to get to the point of at least breaking even every year (6-6 occasional 7-5).
Stoops came in here to be greated with a skunk of a team and talent in his first opportunity as a head coach.
That is a heck of an undertaking for even a experienced coach. Despite having to learn on the job I am going to give him his due for taking on this challenge.
He has brought in better talent, convinced the powers to be to invest in the program with facilities upgrades and a state of the art new training facility.
Despite the setbacks on the field he has this program heading in the right direction. The direction he envisioned, the one he risked his name and career on when he took the job.
Next year he will be at a new starting point (similar to Coach Brooks) and I am rooting that his vision for our program and its future will be more successful then Brooks.
I get this and I know many feel the same way....but at the time it happened, most thought it was a great idea, that Stoops was turning things around and we were finally making a serious commitment to football and were going to do what it took to keep our coaches. Many at the time were griping that if we didn't ante up to keep Stoops from leaving, they would drop their season tickets, blah, blah, blah......they said to pay what ever it took to keep Stoops from leaving.....now we are a year+ later and we had a let down year and everyone seems to have forgotten last year. Hindsight is truly 20/20 but lots of posters (not pointing at the OP) have either clearly forgot about last year or have changed your mind on whether Stoops can lead us out of this mess.
When I look at all the hires this year, I think many schools made potentially "scary" choices......I am honestly glad that we aren't looking for a new coach this year.
I think this is the boat that many of us are in (it's a really big boat) I believe where everyone goes in different directions is trying to figure out where this ends.will we be looking for a new coach and starting from square one at the end of next year?Will there be enough positive change to continue down the road with Stoops? Do significant staff changes occur this year or next year(other than Stoops) This year could have been the crossroads year but that can has been kicked down the road till next year.
The contract situation is a whole other issue and may prove to be a big problem depending on how things go next year
It is really hard to get a reliable feel as to how things will go.Does the recruiting class stay mostly intact,will the staff change,can Barker hold up his end of the deal at QB? It would seem that Stoops has painted himself into a corner,there may be a window to get out but it is fairly small.
There wont be any UK fans around to be surprised. The coaches are our down fall . Call time out for delay of game on a PUNT but no time out for delay of game on a field goal.. which we proceeded to miss. 3.6 mil a year for rookies who are learning on the job. season tickets since 1966 in our family and no more from us
Give me a break. He is risking his career? yet making 3.6 mil a year with 15 mil buyout. Good God I have heard everything now.
Problem is that much like his vision for offensive football nobody knows what his vision for the program as evidenced by the total disorganization both on and off the field...I truly think that much like Joker, he is in way over his head