Kentucky is Playing a Balancing Act to Rotate In Players

“The strength of our team is going to be the team.” Some Kentucky football fans rolled their eyes when Mark Stoops shared that message earlier this summer, but it’s clearly the case, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.

What exactly does that Coach-Speak mean? Kentucky is trying to win with numbers. The overall goal is for the sum to be greater than its parts. Even though Alex Afari starred with 13 tackles, it was evident in the week one win over Toledo.

Kentucky Reserves Who Logged Significant Snaps

The primary goal was to win. The secondary goal was to get young guys meaningful snaps. They did just that early on by rotating Grant Godfrey in for Daveren Rayner during early drives against Toledo.

Grant Godfrey: 21
Cam Dooley: 19
Jaden Smith: 12
Antwan Smith: 9
Landyn Watson: 7

The substitution patterns worked early in the game. That went by the wayside late in the fourth quarter when the Wildcats went deeper into the bench.

“There are some plays in there we would like to have over as well, in particular at linebacker, and some plays that experience matters. In one of the late drives we kind of gave up an explosive (play) with some inexperience and things that we had coached and went over and emphasized throughout camp and gave up a big play that kind of got them going off the goal line that hurt us,” Stoops said earlier this week.

“But those are the things that we knew going into it, that we have to understand and accept that some of these young guys are gonna make some mistakes. We have to be good enough to overcome them and win anyway, and continue to develop them and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

Even though it was frustrating to watch Toledo end the game with a 95-yard scoring drive, it’s a price the Wildcats are willing to play in order to have quality depth later in the season.

Starters Who Aren’t Starters

Terhyon Nichols did not earn a start in Saturday’s game, but he actually played 20 more snaps than cornerback DJ Waller. Why? “We look at him as a starter,” said Stoops. “We rotate those three corners and we do in practice, we do all the time. We’re gonna need three-plus (corners), he’s a guy we have a lot of confidence in.”

This line of thinking applies at multiple positions. One player may receive the start, but he may not play as many snaps as the guy who doesn’t enter the game until the second or third drive.

EDGE: Sam Greene 42 snaps, Kam Olds 28, Steven Soles 20
Cornerback: DJ Waller 28, Terhyon Nichols 48
Defensive Tackle: Kahlil Saunders 37, Tavion Gadson 34
Nose Guard: David Gusta 40, Josaih Hayes: 19
Defensive End: Mi’Quise Humphrey-Grace 19, Jerod Smith 40

Depth matters late in the season. Kentucky isn’t waiting until November to test players who aren’t first on the depth chart.