Kentucky Practice Report: Red Zone Logjam in the Grind of Camp

It was an unseasonably cool day at the Joe Craft Football Training Facility. The breeze was welcomed by the Kentucky Wildcats who are in the middle of the dog days of fall camp.

As is the norm, Liam Coen was first to the podium to speak to the media. A handful of players waited their turn by lying flat on their backs on the sideline. Two weeks of practice, practice, and more practice is piling on the Cats.

“Just look at these guys. They’re all dead,” Coen said with a smirk. “This is camp, man. This is camp. Here it is. That’s the wall. It just hit ’em right there.”

‘Hitting a wall’ is typical during training camp, albeit some might think of it as a four-letter word. Not everyday is going to be a great day of practice. It happens. It’s actually where the most growth takes place and a big reason why Liam Coen wanted to get back into the college ranks.

“How do you respond to anything is how you respond to everything,” said the Kentucky offensive coordinator.

“We had a not so great scrimmage from a point standpoint, right? We’d love to have five, six touchdowns. It didn’t play out that way. We had like three, four field goals and a couple touchdowns. But then we came out and didn’t have a great practice yesterday. Well, what are we going to do? How do you respond? That is truly growth and that’s ultimately why I wanted to come back to college football was to be a part of that growth, to see that growth and to help that growth for these kids to reach their highest potential.”

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Ball Movement without Points

Kentucky ran three series with the ones on the field in their first preseason scrimmage. Before they ever stepped a foot on the field, Coen planned on emphasizing the passing game. It produced explosive plays, but they struggled inside the red zone.

“We kept going down the field and just missed a couple of things in the red zone offensively that ultimately is the difference between touchdowns and field goals. And that was a little disappointing,” said UK’s offensive coordinator.

Kentucky Offensive Line Holds Up

“We’re getting closer and closer to building real continuity and chemistry up there. And they’re all doing a nice job communicating at a high level.”

It’s not perfect, but Liam Coen liked what he saw from the Big Blue Wall. A year ago the unit did not perform like a cohesive group. Offensive line coach Zach Yenser saw all five guys on the same page at Kroger Field.

“We threw the ball quite a bit, which was good to get some protection for Devin (Leary) and felt like we held our own,” Yenser shared. “What we preached to those guys is that we wanted to see operation: all of us being on the same page. We came away with that feeling that we were we were all on the same page after those three drives.”

Kentucky Defense is a Pain in the Ass

Why did the offense struggle to score touchdowns in Saturday’s scrimmage? Because that’s what Brad White does best as a defensive coordinator. We already heard over the weekend how challenging it is to face the UK defense and Coen doubled down on Tuesday.

“It’s a pain. Brad is his hands down one of the best coordinators in the country, if not the best. He throws so much at you every play,” said Coen.

“If you’re just scripting a play against our defense you have to be ready for odd, okie, four-down, four-down over, four-down under, jam, pressure from the boundary, pressure from the field, safety pressure, corner pressure. It’s a lot. It’s a lot, so when you have to — even just scripting one run play, you got to make sure that run has answers for all those defensive looks. That’s not easy.”

Marques Cox knows that all too well. Last year he spent a week preparing for a road trip to Kentucky in what would become his final game for the Northern Illinois Huskies. UK’s left tackle remembers an extensive amount of prep, some might say too much prep.

“I gotta go deep in the archives and memory, but I believe they were just so multiple,” Cox told KSR. “At some point, we just had to zone everything and not chase movement. They were so multiple you didn’t know what to expect.”

That was the informative part of the conversation with Cox. He was much more candid. He joked on J.J. Weaver and shared some insight from his initial high school recruitment. You’ll enjoy the enlightening and entertaining chat with Kentucky’s left tackle. We also spoke with Jeremy Flax. Enjoy.