Execution, Execution, Execution: Kentucky Defense has to Finish

Kentucky’s 35-13 defeat at South Carolina has folks all across Big Blue Nation ringing offensive alarm bells. You don’t have to be a Football Freddie to know that Kentucky has the worst passing attack in FBS football. The offense’s performance wasn’t the only side that left Mark Stoops wanting a little more.

The head coach did something different against South Carolina. Kentucky won the coin toss and elected to receive. Stoops was confident in the gameplan, saw his side geared up, and he was ready to let them go. They did just that, marching methodically down the field on the ground for a quick score that gave Kentucky a 7-0 lead.

That lead did not last for long, and that’s the defensive issue. Kentucky had three different chances to get off the field on third and fourth down against South Carolina, but the Gamecocks kept the drive alive before punching in an equalizer. Instead of taking complete control of the game, South Carolina received a breath of life, all thanks to miscues in those critical third and fourth downs.

“It’s not for a lack of effort. It comes down to execution. That much makes a difference,” defensive coordinator Brad White said on Wednesday. “You just slide past a receiver on a fourth and three, or you’re supposed to ricochet in an A gap, and you get bumped out into a B gap, and it creates a pass rush lane. Little things that happen extend drives, and they did a nice job of capitalizing on the drives.”

Whenever you see a repeated mistake, one has to wonder if there’s something specific, a player who missed his assignment, or a lack of communication in the secondary. There weren’t mental miscues, just errors in execution.

“The common theme is it’s little execution issues, and that’s what we talked about before. It’s got to be every single play. You don’t know which one it is that’s going to make the difference. And that’s football. It’s not going to be perfect, but in some of those situations, when you got a chance to get off the field, we got to get off the field,” said White.

That sounds simple. Execute the call. It’s easier said than done, clearly.

“It feels like I’m a broken record here every week. If it’s 70 plays, 63 of them are really good,” said White.

It was the best White’s defense has been at limiting explosive plays all year. They defended the run with light boxes. The front line performed admirably. White went so far as to describe it as “arguably the most consistent” the Kentucky defense has played all year. But when the margin of error is so thin, there’s no room for execution errors on critical downs.

“If you want to be the defense that you want to be, if you want to take that step that you’re talking about, then you make those plays. That’s what we need to do. We need to consistently make those plays.”