This team can't be forever young and forever building. At some point you have to start playing like a well coached football team. 4 years is more than enough time to get to that point. Also, 'young and inexperienced' don't do this sort of thing all the time, I'm not really sure where you're getting that from. Find me the last team in the SEC that rushed for over 400 yards and lost the game. Moreover, the part that bothers me is that UK finds new and unique ways to lose football games.
Jury is still out on Stoops IMO
- Thread starter Lionel_Hutz
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This team can't be forever young and forever building. At some point you have to start playing like a well coached football team. 4 years is more than enough time to get to that point. Also, 'young and inexperienced' don't do this sort of thing all the time, I'm not really sure where you're getting that from. Find me the last team in the SEC that rushed for over 400 yards and lost the game. Moreover, the part that bothers me is that UK finds new and unique ways to lose football games.
You're right. Unfortunately we have been using that excuse for too long and Stoops gets all the blame for it. Stoops is taking the steps necessary to start moving away from always having to say that to ourselves. At most schools 4 years is enough time to get to that point, unfortunately not at Kentucky. If Stoops would've followed Brooks, then yes it would have been. That's probably one of the few times since Bryant that I could've said that, though. Stoops inherited a mess and we are seeing just how long it's taken to get respectable. It's taken 4 years just to get to respectability. Look at Tennessee. They have been building for almost 20 years!
What I meant to say when I said, "young and inexperienced" was that they lose games they probably shouldn't lose in ways they probably shouldn't lose them. UK has lost football games every way they can.
I don't know if Stoops is the right man long-term or not, but I do know that he seems to be getting the job done at this point. He was tasked with going to a bowl game this year and he should. That's all we can ask for RIGHT NOW.
Next year is different and he should win more than 6, especially considering how down the SEC East is now.
I don't disagree with much of anything you say BigBlueCatNation. It's just frustrating to come out and lay an egg against a team that is injured as hell. I didn't expect to win today but I did expect to be competitive until the final horn and they really just weren't. I like the offense in Gran's hands, especially with a QB that can throw with accuracy. But the D, they just seem to be light years away from being a solid unit.
It's not the way it should be but if we go 6-6 next year Stoops will be given even more time because there are so many people that only care about 6 wins. That is all he ever has to do to stay here nothing more and nothing less.
When this coaching staff keeps trotting out Love instead of playing aggressive talent in Brown and Daniels what do you expect?
My expectations are that out of 108 years, we can some day do something to be proud of. I'll wait another year I guess.
This...it is absurd that our Madden football knowledge fan base comes to continue QB focus when you give up 30-40 pts in losses...that is Madden-ing to me.
Our offense is holding the ball and scoring enough to win games. We've even slowed the crazy TOs the past 2 weeks. We are still in a position with Stoops that we have to score in the 30's to beat decent teams. We can't win a game and hold teams in the 20's and there is no defense stars in the horizon to see it improving much.
Kind of like if we said in basketball that going to the NIT every few years was OK.
haha, true. and funny since ut has very little right now yet didn't seem to be a prob.
Ill gladly take the bet.
How about 500?
I think people were not out their minds when that happened for two reasons:
1) UK won a title the year before and lost everybody.
2) Noel was injured and lost for the year. Team never recovered.
Just a tad bit of a difference.
Yes Johnson is the problem, since he has taken over we haven't won squat. How many points did we put up against Tenn, if only the offense had helped the defense today
Johnson's done some good but it will be interesting to see if Barker gets health does he get to even compete for the starting job in spring again...or will we get another year of Johnsons missed throws, turnovers and missed opportunities...or a 2 QB system I hate (I expect this).
Not saying Barker is the answer...he is also 1 dimensional, throws but can't run...but I don't think having a pocket passer hurts the wildcat heavy running game we've developed. Would enhance it with screens and draws available to Gran to call, or go up tempo and open it up when playing from behind.
Johnson ran it well today, but most games he doesn't run any more than any other QB would and defenses don't respect the pass against us which makes our running game even more impressive.
We've also relegated Conrad to a run/pass blocker when he may be the best pass catching TE UK has ever had.
Not saying Barker is the answer...he is also 1 dimensional, throws but can't run...but I don't think having a pocket passer hurts the wildcat heavy running game we've developed. Would enhance it with screens and draws available to Gran to call, or go up tempo and open it up when playing from behind.
Johnson ran it well today, but most games he doesn't run any more than any other QB would and defenses don't respect the pass against us which makes our running game even more impressive.
We've also relegated Conrad to a run/pass blocker when he may be the best pass catching TE UK has ever had.
Next year will tell the real story. We have went through another season (considering UofL beats us like many expect) and are still pretty much non-competitive against any team worth a crap. We have played three teams that are .500 or above in the conference and was not close to winning any of them. Next year we will have to show we can beat average to below average teams on the road and upset someone at home. Has stoops beaten a P5 opponent with a winning record ?
You do realize that Noel played 24 GAMES that season, only missed like 8 games, and we were already a struggling bubble team in NIT danger before he was injured, right?
Our fans have really embellished that Noel excuse for all it's worth. People now make it sound like he missed the whole season. Sorry but, NO, he played almost the entire season, didn't get injured until it was nearly over.
how could we be having such a pathetic conversation about football coaches 2 days after Leonard Cohen died. -Rick Pitino
On another more serious note though, Our defense is horrid, has been for 4 years running. Stoops' style of defense will never work at UK unless he literally starts binging in top 10 classes every year. Teams that sit back and play defense like we do have to have immense talent to do it. I won't go Madden as some guy mentioned above and explain full cover 2 or cover 3 breakdown but we don't have the ability to do it. We need to bring pressure a lot. Really should be run blitzing a lot too. We never spied Dobbs today and haven't spied a running qb in 4 years, hell we didn't ever even back our ends off the rush and to help contain the edges. Also would Hatcher and Meant and whoever else got hurt or left have helped, yea, obviously but it's on Stoops to have other guys there to help. Hell Eddie Gran, has done an A+ outstanding job with the same thing. QB goes down, new guy can't pass, receivers can't catch, draw up some stuff in the run game. Power back gets hurt and other power guy transfers find a guy a la benny. Every team every year could have an excuse why they aren't winning but good teams and good coaches don't do that. We scored 36 points at UT today and were really never in the game in the 2nd half. I'll end my rant there but our head coach needs to get it together. Florida St. or Oklahoma can kick a FG from the 1 yard line and rely on getting stops, UK can't but you know what, FSU, Bama, Clemson, Okie, any good team would never take the 3 in that situation but that's why those guys and schools are who they are and why Kentucky is who they are
On another more serious note though, Our defense is horrid, has been for 4 years running. Stoops' style of defense will never work at UK unless he literally starts binging in top 10 classes every year. Teams that sit back and play defense like we do have to have immense talent to do it. I won't go Madden as some guy mentioned above and explain full cover 2 or cover 3 breakdown but we don't have the ability to do it. We need to bring pressure a lot. Really should be run blitzing a lot too. We never spied Dobbs today and haven't spied a running qb in 4 years, hell we didn't ever even back our ends off the rush and to help contain the edges. Also would Hatcher and Meant and whoever else got hurt or left have helped, yea, obviously but it's on Stoops to have other guys there to help. Hell Eddie Gran, has done an A+ outstanding job with the same thing. QB goes down, new guy can't pass, receivers can't catch, draw up some stuff in the run game. Power back gets hurt and other power guy transfers find a guy a la benny. Every team every year could have an excuse why they aren't winning but good teams and good coaches don't do that. We scored 36 points at UT today and were really never in the game in the 2nd half. I'll end my rant there but our head coach needs to get it together. Florida St. or Oklahoma can kick a FG from the 1 yard line and rely on getting stops, UK can't but you know what, FSU, Bama, Clemson, Okie, any good team would never take the 3 in that situation but that's why those guys and schools are who they are and why Kentucky is who they are
you do understand though that team's heart and soul was Noel and UK had just started to hit their stride when he got hurt? They lostv6 of the last 10 games he didn't play in. Would they have won the title no, but they most certainly make the tournament and win a couple games with him no denying that. Hell that team lost to eventual national champion by 3 at the the Yum Center. How quickly people forget what the next season so clearly illustrated no matter what you think about a team when Cal gets that talent rolling UK can play with and beat anyone.
Next year the Cats will play USC, Vandy and Miss St on the road and UT, Cards and Gators at home. The only for sure sec win will be Missouri, next year will be it for Stoops!
You must be a Stoops dangler with the way you responded. I am aware of all things you posted. I really don't think you want to get into a comparison between the football and basketball teams at UK or their coaches.
Wow it's almost like people are discovering we have a problem with the talent level of our DL and that our linebackers play like they are inexperienced. We lose our best defensive player and it suddenly appears we are thin in the front seven. We lose our fastest WR and we have no long ball threat. Who would have guess it? So our OL is pretty good as are our TE's, we have a fine stable of RB's, the WR's are bit suspect but we lost the QB we had been developing to injury and have to rely on a very slender JUCO at QB in the SEC. We are bowl bound it appears for the first time in a long drought and it's all Stoops fault. We lose to a team in their place who has resided in the top 10 recruiting sphere for the last four years while beating the spread and putting up record numbers of offense? And UK fans want to act like we should have won this game. It was a surprising loss we didn't expect and we should have beaten the Vegas oddsmakers, well actually we did do that but still. Yeah OK Snivels-R-us rides again
I think that the concern here is that UK still fails to be competitive against teams with winning records. How do we continually fail to win games against the top tier of the conference. Every other team in the SEC pulls off wins against some of those teams except UK. We have the longest losing streak in the nation against Florida and until a few years ago we had the top two longest losing streaks. How can that happen?
Yes I know all that and I know that flailing around constantly changing coaches is not going to work. We now have facilities in place we need some stability to grow the program. The trending is up not down.
Missed my point. Wasn't talking about that particular year. Just any year in general. Expectations every year between football and basketball are totally different.
To me, the NIT in basketball is like a minor bowl with a .500 record in football.
I agree with that. I think until the expectations truly get raised, nothing will change.
Hold on, we coached the UGA game away? Which coach dropped a wide open TD pass that would have put us up 15 with 4 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter?
Give it up, when they win 4 out of 5 these jackasses are no where to be found.
In major college football, the jury stays out until retirement. Just ask Mack Brown or Mark Richt. I am willing to keep him for now. I could be ready to can him 2 years from now. Now that we are 4 years in to his tenure, I will always have this answer for you. 2 rotten seasons in a row is a firing offense once you are established as the head coach. That's fair, absent clearly extenuating circumstances.