Phil Steele rated our DL & LBers dead last in SEC?

[Navy Cat]

I admit I'm a Phil Steele junkie. I applaud the wealth of data he includes in every issue. It's a staple in my reading library (i.e. the bathroom.) Though right more often than he's wrong, I think he's undervalued a couple of Kentucky's units, primarily DB, LB, and QB. Of course, I understand his logic. All of these units are unproven. Lots of potential and prerequisite high recruiting rankings, but mostly unproven on the field. Will it happen this year is the question.

I really like our improved depth at nearly every position. We have two (and in some cases three) deep talent at LB and DB without significant drop off. Believe QB numbers will improve dramatically under Gran and Barker. Bigger emphasis on taking what the defense gives you, and fewer low percentage home run shots. Any improvement at all in time of position, 3rd down conversion rate, and number of 1st downs will lead to big improvement in both scoring offense and defensive performance. Short fields, no rest, lack of depth, and the loss of Lewis doomed the UK defense down the stretch last year.

 

[Levibooty]

I don't think anybody is saying Phil Steele is anything but a highly credible analyst that bettors use to their advantage since he is among the most accurate out there. Most people have an opinion some form theirs from a "feeling" some from their desires Steele bacically just tries to follow the numbers. If the numbers have been bad then his predictions won't be rosy. Still there are solid reasons why so many people follow him.

 

[BatCats32]

If you look at good defenses they have a decent to very good defensive backfield.. How do you counter a good offense with a weak front 7? Have competent defensive backs.. You people are comical. It's hard to throw to covered WRs..

 

[Navy Cat]

If you look at good defenses they have a decent to very good defensive backfield.. How do you counter a good offense with a weak front 7? Have competent defensive backs.. You people are comical. It's hard to throw to covered WRs..

That's true for about the first 2-3 seconds. Even with the best secondaries in the country, coverage starts to break down if you don't have any pressure on the QB and he can stand back there all day waiting on someone to get open.

And I would argue the best defenses are talented all around, not just in one position group.

 

[BatCats32]

I'll agree with you, sir. But, 2-3 seconds and the pocket starts breaking down, good coverage will not completely help the front 7.. But, it damn sure doesn't hurt it

 

[Navy Cat]

I'll agree with you, sir. But, 2-3 seconds and the pocket starts breaking down, good coverage will not completely help the front 7.. But, it damn sure doesn't hurt it

Oh, absolutely, and certainly better than in years past when the coverage broke down from the snap!

 

[*Bleedingblue*]

We will be better than that. We are young but we have talent like never before. I think we are mid pack. I think he's just putting a safe bet with that evaluation and not looking at the kids we have recruited.

What??? Please give us a run down on why we are going to have a better front 7 than 1/2 of the SEC?



As far as the others on here talking about the front 7 why the surprise? This is something I've been harping on for a couple of years now and especially last season. I was promptly told we are recruiting lights out on the line and have an outstanding coach.
The reason why our D does not get to the QB hardly at all and the opposing offense runs the ball successfully all the time against them is because of our offense. I have not figured that out yet at all.
Seems the other SEC schools who have terrible offenses their D doesn't have that problem, just ours. It takes a miracle for us to get a 3 in out.

 

[hmt5000]

Bama, lsu, uga, uf, UT, A&M, missou, and Ole miss are all teams that are loaded up front and would be top 10 in any conference. I think we could be anywhere in that next group and that probably means you're legitimately top 45ish.

Top 45ish with dang near everyone coming back is pretty good. We were 4 plays away from 8 wins last year. And Lord knows we almost blew the ulm and eku games.

I expect the dline to be about the same as last year and lber to be better.

 

[JHB4UK]

best thing about the huge questions about UK's defense is that we ain't going against very many great or even good QB's for our 12 matchups.

 

[NavyCat88]

best thing about the huge questions about UK's defense is that we ain't going against very many great or even good QB's for our 12 matchups.

If we can't stop the run, the quality of opposing QBs (or lack of quality) will be immaterial. Every time I hear "our strength is our secondary"....I cringe.
Maybe with our offensive run game & potentially improved QB play, we can hold onto the ball for longer possessions, score a little more and cut down the number of possessions of the opposing O. If so, we might improve in the W/L column. GBB!

 

[Levibooty]

What??? Please give us a run down on why we are going to have a better front 7 than 1/2 of the SEC?



As far as the others on here talking about the front 7 why the surprise? This is something I've been harping on for a couple of years now and especially last season. I was promptly told we are recruiting lights out on the line and have an outstanding coach.
The reason why our D does not get to the QB hardly at all and the opposing offense runs the ball successfully all the time against them is because of our offense. I have not figured that out yet at all.
Seems the other SEC schools who have terrible offenses their D doesn't have that problem, just ours. It takes a miracle for us to get a 3 in out.

I was told all our DL issues will be solved when Provitt or somebody like that gets here. I'm still waiting.

 

[Levibooty]

If our ST's improve, if our offense improves, then I can see where our defense will be rested more and better able to defend.

 

[Mr Schwump]

I was told all our DL issues will be solved when Provitt or somebody like that gets here. I'm still waiting.[/QUOT

Is Provitt even an option?

 

[shutzhund]

If the Dline doesn't improve this yr changes will need to be made.

This is college. You can't just fire the defensive tackles and linebackers and hire new ones. Although, that's not a bad idea given past performances.

 

[UKWinsAgainYep]

Losing Hatcher and to a lesser extent Tubman, scuttled the master plan for succeeding Zdarius & Bud.

We don't have pros on that side of the line, unfortunately.

Yep, Hatcher will hurt more than most people realize...We have a bunch of unknowns on Defense. The offense will have to outscore people because our Defense will probably be weak.

We have talent on Offense at skill positions, but can the O-Line improve to let it flourish?

 

[Kooky Kats_anon]

Just rewatched the Georgia game. They ran all over us. This while their offense was struggling.

If Elam comes SEC ready to play and stays healthy, there's a good chance our Defense will be better. If he's the same dude as last year, we will stink.

 

[Levibooty]

Just rewatched the Georgia game. They ran all over us. This while their offense was struggling.

If Elam comes SEC ready to play and stays healthy, there's a good chance our Defense will be better. If he's the same dude as last year, we will stink.

To be fair UGA ran over a lot of people last year. But yes we have had a very hard time stopping the run for years and years.

 

[Kooky Kats_anon]

To be fair UGA ran over a lot of people last year. But yes we have had a very hard time stopping the run for years and years.

UGA struggled to beat Vandy, Mizzou and Georgia Southern... They were in a tailspin offensively when they played us. They broke a TDless drought against UK.

 

[Levibooty]

UGA struggled to beat Vandy, Mizzou and Georgia Southern... They were in a tailspin offensively when they played us. They broke a TDless drought against UK.

We were talking about running the ball not wins and losses. UGA averaged 192 yards a game rushing the ball, Bama averaged 199. I was just saying UGA ran well last year and that has historically been our weakness.

 

[*Bleedingblue*]

To be fair UGA ran over a lot of people last year. But yes we have had a very hard time stopping the run for years and years.

you must be forgetting when we played them it was after Chubb went down. they struggled mightily after that.... except against us.

 

[Kooky Kats_anon]

On a positive note, if our offense is more efficient it will ensure that our defense isn't ground to powder by mid-3rd quarter.

Go offense!

 

[Levibooty]

you must be forgetting when we played them it was after Chubb went down. they struggled mightily after that.... except against us.

They averaged 192 yards a game and against our poor run defense they ran for 300. I'm not forgetting anything. No doubt they did not run as well without Chubb---who would? Still Michel averaged 5.3 yards a carry and Mashall averaged 5.1 that's not too shabby for back-ups.

 

[gobigblue812_rivals29381]

We need more sustained drives on offense to keep our D rested. We also need ST to provide good field position for both the O and the D. If our DBs can cover, we can bring more people up to the LOS to help with the run. That is a recipe for success.

 

[Anon1660081258]

If the secondary is as good as hoped this season, it might do a lot to make some modest improvements in the F7 look much more significant. I am thinking of the phrases "coverage sack" and "extra man in the box" as figuring largely in what the unit might achieve.

I am hopeful that Love is real gap filler MLB. Forrest became more physical over time, but never really impressed me as an instinctive MLB who found the POA and turned the tables on the ball carrier often enough. He was intercepting the ball carrier, rather than attacking him, IMO, and that makes a significant difference in terms of AYPC for the opposition.

If Love is a "surprise" upgrade at MLB, and the secondary delivers on its promise, I think any significant improvement in the offense will finally spell a winning regular season for CMS. I'll take that this year.

 

[1Blouman]

Just what I heard. That is very much a buzz-kill for the upcoming season. If he' right, we're toast unless Barker and co. put about 35 on the board every game (highly doubtful, imo). PS isn't always correct, of course, but a sobering prediction, nevertheless.

Dead last might be rating us a little too high.

 

[Lonesome Hippopotamus]

I've too many screenshots of some of your post's on here too.

So when we're doing good this year and you want to be the bandwagon a$$ that you are.

I'll be able to call you out for it.

I don't know if I would go as far as screenshots of a random persons posts... much less one post, but I like your attitude.

 

[*Bleedingblue*]

By Nick Roush on KSR Here is a direct link to what he wrote. http://kentuckysportsradio.com/football-2/cats-address-areas-of-concern-at-sec-media-days/

UK’s returning middle linebackers have combined for one career tackle. That’s it. From the most important position on defense.

They expect a plethora of redshirt players with special teams experience to be ready to contribute right away, but much of the burden falls on a pair of transfers. Nebraska transfer Courtney Love and Minnesota transfer De’Niro Laster.

Defensive Line
Only 17 sacks were recorded by the Kentucky defensive line in 2015. That number must dramatically improve in order to be successful in the fall.

Playing Laster on the outside could be part of the solution. Denzil Ware’s spring game sacks showed that he can help fix the problem. One person they hoped could also help on the outside was junior college transfer Jordan Bonner.

After suffering a stab wound in the spring, the injury forced him to miss significant time not just on the field, but in the classroom. The missed time forced him to drop classes, delaying his arrival. He was expected to come to campus in June, but now they are not expecting Bonner on campus until August.

On the interior of the defensive line, the depth chart revealed that junior college transfer Naquez Pringle cannot be expected to provide help early, falling to the third spot. Much of the pressure falls on Matt Elam’s shoulders, but Stoops doesn’t want to apply too much pressure.

“You don’t want to put too much pressure on him, but we’ve worked hard together with a solid plan to help Matt really get in great shape. The kid works out and does everything right in our facility. He can go through every workout and he’s explosive, he runs well, he does a lot of good workouts, but he has to manage his weight to play at a high level. We’ve worked hard at that. I don’t want to jinx him right now and tell you any weights or anything like that, but he’s looking a lot better and he’s been very serious in approaching that in the right way.”

Elam’s problem has never been what he does in the facility, it’s what he does away from the facility. Stoops hesitated to reveal too much of Elam’s plight, acting protectively, while relaying the message that Matt is taking this very seriously.

“We’ve worked extremely hard addressing and really analyzing everything and getting down to the nuts and bolts and being very truthful in what we can do to help him. He wants to do right. He has a great heart…but he does have to get his eating under control.”

 

[*Bleedingblue*]

They averaged 192 yards a game and against our poor run defense they ran for 300. I'm not forgetting anything. No doubt they did not run as well without Chubb---who would? Still Michel averaged 5.3 yards a carry and Mashall averaged 5.1 that's not too shabby for back-ups.

165 yards rushing against UT Chubb gets hurt in 1st quarter. lost 38-31
120 yards rushing against Mizzou won 9-6
69 yards rushing against Florida lost 27-3
300 yards rushing against UK won 27-3
146 yards rushing against Auburn won 20-13
130 yards rushing against Georgia Southern won 23-17 OT
178 yards rushing against Georgia Tech won 13-7
166 yards rushing against Penn St won 24-17

Notice these rushing yards??? Looks to me they ran all over our D.

What you see here with Georgia last season is much like Florida where their D wins them games. Their D is able to get 3 and outs and prevents the other team from beating them even though their offense sucked.
We on the other hand had an offense similar to other SEC E teams but better than some of them. The difference was their D was better than ours.

you guys who look frantically for excuses on why the D cannot stop I guess have no critical thinking skills. You have a favorite position and you stick up for them no matter what.

 

[Levibooty]

165 yards rushing against UT Chubb gets hurt in 1st quarter. lost 38-31
120 yards rushing against Mizzou won 9-6
69 yards rushing against Florida lost 27-3
300 yards rushing against UK won 27-3
146 yards rushing against Auburn won 20-13
130 yards rushing against Georgia Southern won 23-17 OT
178 yards rushing against Georgia Tech won 13-7
166 yards rushing against Penn St won 24-17

Notice these rushing yards??? Looks to me they ran all over our D.

What you see here with Georgia last season is much like Florida where their D wins them games. Their D is able to get 3 and outs and prevents the other team from beating them even though their offense sucked.
We on the other hand had an offense similar to other SEC E teams but better than some of them. The difference was their D was better than ours.

you guys who look frantically for excuses on why the D cannot stop I guess have no critical thinking skills. You have a favorite position and you stick up for them no matter what.

Do you realize you're repeating what is in my post?

 

[*Bleedingblue*]

Do you realize you're repeating what is in my post?[/QUOTE
Against those opponents they did not average 192. You need to leave the total yards out against us to get their average against other opponents when chubb went down.

 

[JPFisher]

What??? Please give us a run down on why we are going to have a better front 7 than 1/2 of the SEC?



As far as the others on here talking about the front 7 why the surprise? This is something I've been harping on for a couple of years now and especially last season. I was promptly told we are recruiting lights out on the line and have an outstanding coach.
The reason why our D does not get to the QB hardly at all and the opposing offense runs the ball successfully all the time against them is because of our offense. I have not figured that out yet at all.
Seems the other SEC schools who have terrible offenses their D doesn't have that problem, just ours. It takes a miracle for us to get a 3 in out.

That's the issue with a "bend, don't break" defense, as far as I can tell. The defense relies on the offense to give them breaks. The type of defense we play won't create a lot of 3-and-outs. They won't get themselves off the field all the time, but will try to lull offenses into mistakes are capitalize on those mistakes.

At least that's my interpretation.

 

[*Bleedingblue*]

That's the issue with a "bend, don't break" defense, as far as I can tell. The defense relies on the offense to give them breaks. The type of defense we play won't create a lot of 3-and-outs. They won't get themselves off the field all the time, but will try to lull offenses into mistakes are capitalize on those mistakes.

At least that's my interpretation.

Well they need to bend a little less and bow out in their backfield. Lol

 

[JPFisher]

Well they need to bend a little less and bow out in their backfield. Lol

I'm sure Stoops knows what he's doing.

 

[WildCard]

That's the issue with a "bend, don't break" defense, as far as I can tell. The defense relies on the offense to give them breaks. The type of defense we play won't create a lot of 3-and-outs. They won't get themselves off the field all the time, but will try to lull offenses into mistakes are capitalize on those mistakes.

At least that's my interpretation.

Dad-gummit Fisher, you done gone and used one of my most hated football cliches. Now I'm gonna rant...

There is no such thing as a "bend, don't break" defense.

That is just some hackneyed phrase that some writer or coach came up with to describe a situation where his team was fortuitous enough to hold opponents to a few red zone FG after watching them drive up and down the field! Why the Hell would you create a defensive scheme designed to stop an offense inside your 20 rather than on their 20?

Seriously, no defense wants to "bend", but some defenses might play a more "conservative" style than others. You don't have to full out attack on every play but defenses want to get off the field as soon as possible. [winking]

Peace

 

[Deeeefense]

Dad-gummit Fisher, you done gone and used one of my most hated football cliches. Now I'm gonna rant...

There is no such thing as a "bend, don't break" defense.

That is just some hackneyed phrase that some writer or coach came up with to describe a situation where his team was fortuitous enough to hold opponents to a few red zone FG after watching them drive up and down the field! Why the Hell would you create a defensive scheme designed to stop an offense inside your 20 rather than on their 20?

Seriously, no defense wants to "bend", but some defenses might play a more "conservative" style than others. You don't have to full out attack on every play but defenses want to get off the field as soon as possible. [winking]

Peace

Not sure I agree with this. Some defenses are designed to contain an offense rather than stop it. If you play a lot of zone, have DBs give cushion at the line of scrimmage, drop a LB into coverage occasionally etc. that is typical of BBDB, You stop the big gainers but allow short yardage plays. OTOH playing 8 in the box, a lot of press coverage, and blitzing is designed to break an offense at the risk of giving up a big play.

The idea of BBDB strategy, is that if the opponent takes the ball on the 20-25 yl, if you contain the offense and make them work for their first downs, eventually before they get to the redzone, they will fail to convert a 3rd down or make a mistake which will allow you to get the ball back.

 

[Levibooty]

Exactly Deeeefense. BBDB defense intends to make the offense play mistake-free ball for an entire game. It also helps hide deficiencies on a roster.

An attack defense is meant to pressure the offense into mistake or bad decisions the defense can make a play on. It usually relies on the advantage of speed and quickness.

 

[Jdhays21]

Everyone talks about Courtney Love because he HAS to be good for us to make a bowl game, but the best linebacker on the field will be Jordan Jones.

 

[Deeeefense]

Everyone talks about Courtney Love because he HAS to be good for us to make a bowl game, but the best linebacker on the field will be Jordan Jones.

Maybe the linebackers as a group will the the surprise unit this year.

 

[WildCard]

Not sure I agree with this. Some defenses are designed to contain an offense rather than stop it. If you play a lot of zone, have DBs give cushion at the line of scrimmage, drop a LB into coverage occasionally etc. that is typical of BBDB, You stop the big gainers but allow short yardage plays. OTOH playing 8 in the box, a lot of press coverage, and blitzing is designed to break an offense at the risk of giving up a big play.

The idea of BBDB strategy, is that if the opponent takes the ball on the 20-25 yl, if you contain the offense and make them work for their first downs, eventually before they get to the redzone, they will fail to convert a 3rd down or make a mistake which will allow you to get the ball back.

But, unless you have a truly effective ball control offense, doesn't this implicitly mean your defense will likely be on the field longer than your offense? Who likes that? Not too mention the fact that giving up long drives is also giving up field position.

I certainly get the "strategy" of making opponents drive great distances to score but I also know that "tactically" the defense is trying to force a punt and get off the field as soon as they can. Maybe they are not running high risk defensive call but they still want to get off the field. You can play very conservative the whole game when you have a substantial edge in talent.

I'll believe BBDB is a true "strategy" when I hear a DC say; "It was our game plan to let them wear themselves out between the 20s then stop 'em in the red zone". [winking]

Peace

 

[Jdhays21]

Maybe the linebackers as a group will the the surprise unit this year.

Very well could be. There is no denying this group of linebackers is as athletic as we have seen.