Mike Leach (SEC Photo)
Not sure how many times this week that I have seen different “blueprints” being discussed as a way to stop Mike Leach’s potent offense that Kentucky will have to face Saturday night when he brings Mississippi State to face UK. Leach learned his craft under former UK coach Hal Mumme and is one of the founders of the Air Raid offense. He’s fine tuned his philosophy over the years but the results remain big numbers.
“If there was a blueprint, he would not be one of the most successful offensive minds in this business for the last 29 years,” Kentucky defensive coordinator Brad White said Wednesday. “He has done it for a long time.”
How long?
“I grew up watching his offenses put up points,” White said. “I think you can’t be one dimensional with him. He knows his system so well that if you get locked into one (defense), he knows the answer. We have to do some different things and provide different looks.”
White says he wants players playing at a high level but also doing it under control without forgetting their primary responsibility each play.
“You want to push the right buttons and motivate and get them to play at a high level but understanding it is really important that they do their job,” White said. “It’s a fine line because you want them to do their job really, really well but a piece of you does not want them to be satisfied.
“We want guys to win in their primary job and be able to tear off in their secondary role. You don’t want to take the football player out of guys. But you have to do your primary job first before you do your secondary job.
“A lot of times guys feel they need to do something to help the team win. Every player wants to see his name on the stat sheet and be able to make a difference.”
