For me, it's O-line play, the defensive front 7, and the secondary.
Did we have a bad secondary? Nah, it was one of the more efficient pass defenses in the country, but I would like to see it be the most efficient pass defense in the country. With Mark Stoops at the helm, and him being a coach of the secondary, especially seeing the improvement made from last year to this year, I think this will be far and away the biggest improvement. Especially if we get recruits like Marcus Lewis.
The defensive front 7 struggled against the run for the biggest part of the season. I became confident in this group in the Louisville game. If Courtney Love gets to play immediately. I look for him to be a big part of our linebacking corps. He can take over the middle linebacker spot (The guy has massive size, and the speed to match outside linebackers), and I think Forrest would be an excellent outside linebacker. Even in the middle, he was able to catch most players on the edges of the field. He'll put on a little extra size as well, and he's the kind of linebacker who has the hands and now the defensive experience to be dangerous against tight ends in coverage. Firios seems to be excelling, and will finally know all of the plays. That's big for LB depth, I look for him to have a spot on the interior in the 3-4, and to provide good depth for the position overall. Stoops and co. have raved about him, and the scout team defense overall.
The d-line, despite losing Bud, should do fine. Bud is an excellent pass rusher, but he sounds very confident in Denzel's abilities, and Denzel has had an excellent red-shirt season learning from Bud, and performing on the scout team defense. I look for him to have an outstanding career. We're 100% set at the defensive tackle position, and I'm not at all worried there. We have very good DT's coming back with a lot of experience under their belt. Overall, I'm confident that our front 7 kicks it up a couple of notches this coming season, and overall, I believe we will have an excellent defensive year.
O-line play is the final big one. If the defense performs as I expect them to, the O-line will be the difference between 7 wins, or 9 wins before bowl season. I know Dawson's extremely up-tempo offensive philosophy should mask a few offensive issues, but this is too important to ignore. It improves too many thing. It will improves the YPC for our running backs (which was already good, and if we get Harris, I expect it to be better), it improves QB decision making. The QB can relax, scan the field, find the open receiver, or if he has a very big hole open, tuck it and run. It's the life blood of the offense, and if the O-line performs well, our defense can get a break, and perform better itself.
We have the pieces to have an extraordinary year next year, we have the staff, a proven defensive coach at the helm, an offensive coordinator who has a history with fast, explosive offenses, and if we get Harris, he will have a lot of good tools in our receiver depth, 2 outstanding backs in Boom and Damien, and two QB's who can give you two different looks in Towles and Barker. It's wide open, we're gonna have to fight hard next year, but Kentucky will have the ability to beat anybody on their schedule. Good play-calling, and players giving it 100% every time they're on the field will be big. I think next year will tell us, as fans, a lot about the new Kentucky football culture.
