Tom Leach looks ahead to UK football season
- Thread starter wildcatman26
- Start date
Leach made a good point when he mentioned that you can make a case that we overachieved in 2014, but underachieved in 2015. The primary difference between those two seasons was the offensive coaching. Therefore having Gran an established successful OC, in charge of the offense with Hinshaw, a true QB coach for the first time during Stoops era, plus Thomas, a high energy receiver coach with an NFL background - you have to like our chances of righting the ship this year.
I agree with that 100%.
2014 was a year where we seen a ton of potential from a lot of very, very young skill players (Example: 3OT at the Swamp with Towles (3rd career start), Garrett Johnson (2nd career start/game), Dorian Baker (2nd career start/game), Boom Williams (2nd career start/game), and put up a good number of points on the season despite the youth of the team and the poor offensive line in front of it. Last year, Shannon Dawson had older, more improved players, and completely mismanaged them, which resulted in a horrendous offense. Gave us nearly a touchdown less per game, which is awful. Think we have much better offensive coaches this year than we had the previous 2, I think their approach is much more professional than that of the previous 2 coaches, and I think that will fit in well with a much more talented, and mature offensive unit than we've fielded in the Stoops era. Wouldn't be surprised to see our offense take a massive leap this year. If we fielded the 2014 offense this past season, then we could have very well won 8 games (Florida, Auburn, Vanderbilt were all games that we were one play away).
I've made that point a couple of times.
Folks should stop scapegoating Dawson/Brown...
Our defense and special teams were terrible last year... TS.
Our defense and special teams were terrible last year... TS.
Dawson was the single biggest problem last year. He had no concept of what his unit had to do to win ball games and that ball control is a key element. He was selfish and created a huge split in the program. ST were bad especially punting which had been a real strength until an injury. We continued to put our defense in terrible field position and give them no rest because we failed to control the ball. The defense was good enough for us to win 6-7 games. Offense was a train wreck and that is why several of those coaches are gone including Dawson who was no scapegoat. He was a disaster.
It is a team game my friend. They win as a team and lose as a team. Winning teams find a way to overcome difficulties. We are just now coming into that team effort to win more than we lose.
False
Our defense was pretty good except for a couple of games.
Dawson had more experienced talent than brown and scored 5 pts fewer/game. Square peg round hole Oc play calling. Gran should get the 5 points back just by experience. If stuff actually clicks and goes well.... well, I think we avg 8 pts more this year. I think 10 is not completely looney.
Perhaps you missed every mobile quarterback on the schedule. Stoops and Elliott should not get a pass.
Most teams struggle against running qbs. Hell Saban has problems stopping it. Hopefully we will be better next year though, but the defense wasnt as bad as its made out to be. The offense hurt the defense by putting them into short fields all year long.
FIFY.
To watch our LBs and DEs continually crash in and lose leverage on option plays means our team was horribly prepared.
Well, maybe Kooky Kats should be the HC since he thinks its easy.
C'mon Kooky Moron teach us your ways!
C'mon Kooky Moron teach us your ways!
I don't see where he said it was easy . He said they were ill prepared. For example the UK DE coming out after the UL game and saying they didn't prepare for the UL QB at all. How could you not prepare for the guy after he ran all over Pitt the week before? Petrino just ran the same play over and over but UK made no adjustments at all to stop it.
Jackson ran for 19 yards on 11 carries vs Pitt. He hit a Hail Mary pass that game, and that was about all of his production in the game.
I was there - poor contain and I guess poor coaching. There wasn't even much to coach, it's sad a peewee play beat us - I wasn't disagreeing with stopping the play...just saying there was a reason LJackson didn't even start.
We would've been better off just assigning D Ware to hit LJ every play.
It was a Pee-wee play they kept running. We could have put two guys on Jackson. It wasn't like he could beat us with his arm. Surely Stoops saw running QB's before. That UK never made any adjustments amazed me, especially when everybody else in the stadium knew what play UofL was going to run.
The really sad thing is that the prior season was the exact opposite. UK shut down dual threat Bonnafon and struggled with Bolin...but plenty of QBs can look good throwing to Parker.
Another way to look at things is what in the hell is Petrino thinking? 0-2 in selecting the correct starting QB...he has been shuffling that position for 2years, even he cant figure it out. Then again, I wish we had been shuffling our QBs more
I don't think Dawson was the biggest problem. I think him and Towles just became the scapegoats for all the problems. I was bitterly disappointed especially after Stoops came out at the beginning of the season talking about the improvements we would see. It was probably utmost distinctions UK team I have seen in my lifetime.
Petrino's offense is built for the QB seeing what he does. He is quick to pull a QB who isn't running things the way he wants. That's what scares me about Barker- as bad as Towles was Barker never sniffed the field. What does that say about Barker's ability? You can blame Dawson all you want but it is Stoops team.
Barker will be fine. Dawson and Towles were boys and Stoops was afraid of inexperience.
Plenty of blame to go around.
And Petrinos QB handling at UL this second time around has been poor.
I don't think Petrino has had the QB he feels comfortable with + injuries and the fact UL's O-line has been a sieve. This year it will be Jackson and Pass. Bolin won't sniff the field unless injuries decimate their QB position again.
Kentucky hasn't had the ideal QBs it has wanted the last few years either...doesn't mean they haven't totally mismanaged the position. Same goes for Bob.
And this is a perfect illustration of the 2015 season in a nutshell... DEs prepared for a running QB, LBs didn't. Maybe players should have done some individual film review of UofL? No one was on the same page - coaches, players, no one...
Our D was ranked 91 in 2014 and 70 in 2015. It was significantly better, however your memory is not. This year we'll be in the 50's.
Dawson was promoted upwarded into a OC spot, whereas Gran was a lateral move. Gran has a track record of success as an OC, and brought in a true QB coach with him which we haven't had before. Granted none of these coaches come with guarantees but I can certainly see the logic behind being a lot more optimistic this year.
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.
Maybe you should look at the "2 new assistants" track record.
And If you think Gran/Hinshaw isn't an upgrade from Dawson. Quit posting on here.
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.
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.
Cards were just awful in that game. Defense gave up about 230 yards more than they were allowing on the average. 34 points will win a lot of games except when your defense implodes. Unfortunately that happens from time to time.
Well, I don't know about that latter point but it is a pretty difficult play to defend against with a guy like Jackson. Jackson could be (I'm not saying he is) be one of those "special" players that basically just "out athletes" most other players, especially when you get the defense spread out. Yes, Ware, did chase the ball a few times. That made it easier to read but I'm not sure that strictly "playing the keep" would have changed things very much. Jackson is not just fast but he gets to full speed very quickly. IOW, he can turn a "tie" into a clear cut advantage. On his 1st TD run Hatcher played the keep perfectly but Jackson "stretched the gap" and just cut inside of him and went in untouched.
Peace
Like I said......
His last post proves he isn't a Kentucky fan.
I could name 100+ other disasters previously in the Kentucky football program, one of which is not the 2015 season.