Kentucky's offense needs to get more explosive for the Cats to move up in the SEC. (SEC Photo)
Because of a bye week in the schedule Kentucky has had a week to lick their wounds from the 14-3 loss to Georgia. I’ve also had a week to do some introspective thinking and evaluate where this football program is headed under Mark Stoops after 7 1/2 years at the helm.
If Kentucky is as bad as its last two losses would indicate — to Missouri by a 20-10 score and the aforementioned Georgia loss — then the Cats don’t appear to have made a tremendous amount of forward movement. After all, Georgia was drilled by the SEC East-leading Florida Gators this past Saturday 44-28 and Missouri had lost to those same Gators 41-17 the week before.
If the Wildcats are truly trying to work themselves up into the upper echelon of the SEC East and catch teams like Florida, they haven’t made much progress — or so it would appear — based on those losses to Missouri and Georgia.
But let’s take a closer look at where the Cats truly stand overall in the SEC. Most teams in the league have played six games of a 10 game “SEC only” schedule (The few exceptions being Florida, Missouri, Vanderbilt and LSU). Of the 14 teams competing in the SEC this season, only one is 6-0. That would be perennial conference champion Alabama. After that there are a couple of teams with one loss — Florida and Texas A&M. Then the second tier of teams with two losses — Auburn and Georgia — and then everyone else with three or four losses. And of course Vanderbilt hasn’t beaten anyone.
So eight teams out of 14 in the SEC have three or four losses out of their five or six games played. With Kentucky sitting at 2-4 does that mean that the Wildcats have moved up to be competitive with the bulk of the teams in the SEC East and West?
Well, it’s not that easy to say. After all, the SEC still has almost half the schedule to play. If Kentucky’s schedule had been front loaded with difficult teams — it was not — then it could be argued that the Cats would pick up some much needed wins on the back side and move up in the standings. Unfortunately that doesn’t look to be the case. With Alabama and Florida as two of the four games left it looks like Kentucky may be headed for a 4-6 final schedule at best, and that assumes the Cats can beat South Carolina and Vanderbilt.
So, if UK has lost 66 percent of its games at this point in the season they couldn’t be a very good team, could they? Again it’s complicated.
In looking at the Cats statistically, other than their overall record, they look like a two-legged stool. Here’s what I mean. They rank first in the SEC in defensive points allowed per game giving up only 19. They are also ranked first in pass defense giving up 212 yards per game and third in overall defense giving up 355 yards per game. But on offense they rank 11th in the SEC in points scored per game with 21 and rank 14th in yards per game with 295.
If “Defense wins championships” as former Hall of Fame Football Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant so famously said when he was at Alabama, then UK should be at or near the top of the SEC standings this week. After all, based on the defensive statistics, they have to be the best or second best defense in the league. Once again, it’s complicated. It’s that two-legged stool I mentioned earlier.
Regardless of what Bear Bryant said, one dimensional teams don’t win championships.
Teams like Kentucky, that have built a dominant defense, and teams like Ole Miss, that have built a dominant offense (ranked third with 38 points scored per game in the SEC), don’t win championships. It takes a team that is dominant in one area, like Alabama is on offense scoring an average of 47 points per game, and is very good in the other area, namely defense, by ranking third in points given up per game at 22. That wins championships.
So if one is a “glass half full” kind of person then it appears Mark Stoops is well on his way to building a championship program. His defense is championship-caliber at first or second in the SEC and his offense, ranked 11th at 21 points per game, just needs a little tweaking to get up to a level that would allow UK to win key games and compete with the best in the SEC. If one happens to be a “glass half empty” person then they might believe that Stoops will always have a lopsided stool that cannot stand on its own due to an overemphasis on defense to the detriment of the offensive side of the ball.
I tend to be somewhat of a “glass half empty” person so it’s difficult for me to see this scenario changing anytime soon.
Yes, Eddie Gran teams at UK have averaged around 27 points per game during his four years there but even that number would only put UK in 8th place and on par with Arkansas and South Carolina at 25 offensive points per game.
It seems to me that times have changed and in order for the Wildcats to move up into the upper echelon of teams in the SEC they would have to continue to play dominant defense while opening up the offense similar to what Alabama has done.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of high powered offenses that throw the ball 50 times per game but — and it’s a big but — it appears that with the way the college game has changed one needs to look no further than at Alabama, Clemson or Ohio State as examples to see that in today’s college football game offense not only wins games, but also wins championships … if that same team plays a credible amount of defense.
It looks like Stoops needs to figure out how to fix the broken leg on his stool. It may take some staff changes, it may take some philosophical changes in how Kentucky approaches offense and defense or it may only take getting the correct players off the bench and onto the field. After all, Kentucky has two four-star quarterbacks on the roster just waiting to be developed.
But from watching what Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State have done in the past few years, it appears that a coach has to have a top notch quarterback in the mold of Mac Jones, Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields and an offense that allows them to demonstrate their skills.
Kentucky might have the players in four-star quarterbacks Joey Gatewood and Beau Allen, but I think they have a long way to go in making the philosophical switch from “three yards and a cloud of dust” to “four wideouts and a running back in the slot.”
Until the coaching staff can get over that hump it appears the Wildcats will continue to look very lopsided — like a two-legged stool — and you sure can’t set an SEC Championship Trophy on a two-legged stool.
— Keith Peel, Contributing Writer
