Tom Leach looks ahead to UK football season

[PTUKBlue]

Why? Because I'm not a sunshine pumper? I'm in the show me camp. Stoops said we would see great improvement last year and it was probably the biggest disaster in UK football history. OT to beat Eastern , watching UofL run the same 5th grade play over and over. A QB who is going to lead us this year not even seeing the field until the season was lost, bone headed coaching decision after decision. Just color me skeptical that bringing in 2 new assistants is going to be the fix that solves everything.

No, it's just that it's tiring to continually have to point out the win totals going decidedly down in the Jokers years, and how fast and almost imediaetly the upward motion seemed to be headed with stoops his first two years and be labeled a "sunshine pumped". Can't see how anyone could argue that. So last year was admittedly a disappointment for everyone, coaches included. The difference in momentume to me seemed to be offense. The defense looked to be as good or maybe slightly better than the year prior. Seemed the defense starts to tire out and wear thin toward the end of games. Someone mentioned earlier, maybe in another thread, the offense a year older and more experienced somehow averaged 5ppg less than the year prior. So what's the difference in the two years prior and the year that somehow put some in a "wait and see camp"? Seems obvious it was loss of offensive production and that seemed to fall on Dawson. If it's ok to look past the obvious trend upward Stoops teams showed the first two years from the previous regime and with the players left him, and declare Stoops a disappointment and say it's a "wait and see approach", then would it also not be wrong to say that maybe Dawson mismanaged the offense. And maybe also say that last year was the outlier and maybe this year should be the year to expect more wins. Maybe patience isn't a crazy endeavor (at least til year end) now that Stoops finally had HIS players and HIS choice to run offense. He did want Gran and did "settle" for Dawson. That was HIS mistake, but Brown leaving was not. With Brown, we win AT LEAST one more game last year and this conversation is moot. Instead we settled for Dawson and that to me seemed to be the cause of average points per being down in year three, with literally the entire offense back. I remember thinking and hearing, that offense would carry us some until the defense caught up. Seemed to be the offense cost us more than anything else. There just so much more information pointing to that as fact then there is discrediting it. And the more the offense flounderd, the more Stoops distrust for Dawson increased and obvious decenssion between certain players and coaches became apparent. Not sure how anyone could argue against that?

 

[PTUKBlue]

Here is why I have hope for this year.

3 years ago we had a proven OC in Brown and a proven DC in Stoops. However, that didn't matter because they had very little talent to work with. Season was a bust.

2 years ago Brown pieced together some very marginal talent and made the offense competitive. The defense was still a year away. That was almost enough to get us to that 6th win and post season play.

Last year the defense improved enough to keep us in games. However, the offense took a pretty big step back with Dawson at the helm. I can't say it was all his fault but I am confident that had Brown come back for a third year we win at least 7 very likely 8.

This year the defense still has a proven coach and the talent should be improved at some positions but younger at others. Overall, they should be about equal to last year's squad. The offense has the potential to be on a completely different level this year. We once again have a proven OC and the most experienced offensive coaching staff since Stoops has been here. We should be improved at just about every position except center and QB. We should be ok at center but the QB is a huge question mark. If Barker proves to be the QB he was billed as when he was recruited, we will have a very nice season. If the few games he played in last year were a foreshadowing of his performance this year, its going to be a very long season. I have a feeling that between Gran and Hinshaw, Barker will at least be serviceable and serviceable is really all that is needed in this style offense. We have a good size arsenal of offensive weapons between RB's, WR's and a TE who will play on Sundays. If the coaches and Barker can figure out how to successfully distribute the ball to these guys we can all go ahead and take some vacation time in late December or early January.

Should have read further down. This is exactly what I was trying, but fail g to say. Agree 100%