Mark Stoops makes it clear turnovers cannot continue and confident Chris Rodriguez will solve his fumbling issue
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops is making no excuses regarding his team’s 11 turnovers through the first three games.
“We need to clean up the turnovers, the fumbles in particular,” he said Monday. “We will work extremely hard on that this week. I believe it is something that we can get corrected, and we will. … I’m not going to sit here and it’s not going to be the end-all, be-all, it can’t be. There is a lot of good things going on, but it simply cannot happen. We understand that. We’re going to technically talk about it and go through things, and then we’re going to move on.”
Kentucky had three turnovers — two lost fumbles and an interception — in Saturday’s 16-10 win at South Carolina. The Wildcats (4-0, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) have thrown five interceptions and lost six fumbles to open the season and Stoops is confident running back Chris Rodriguez and quarterback Will Levis will trim down the number of miscues going into Saturday’s showdown against No. 10 Florida.
“I’m confident Chris that will get it corrected,” Stoops said. “Any time you let things go to the point where they are right now, there’s a concern, and it needs to be addressed. There’s no denying that. I’m not at all at a point where we need to be in a state of panic or anything, but we have to get any habits that we’re creating early in the season, we have to get corrected.”
A concern prior to last week’s contest at South Carolina, Stoops said the Wildcats were more “complementary” on both sides of the ball, especially on defense, in the team’s fourth game.
“I thought we played much better complementary football (last) week. You heard me talk a week ago here, that was definitely the worst we’ve ever played for each other (against Chattanooga). (Last) week we complemented each other very much. It’s hard to define exactly those moments, but I think you can understand that.”
As for the offense, Stoops said a lot of the team’s miscues are “self-induced” which has stalled several positive drives during the first month of the season.
“I think we got a little off track this past week being backed up. It’s not an excuse but I think one of the possessions we were backed up, we got a couple of first downs, created some decent field position, got a punt. … I think we had one punt early in the second quarter and then we kind of got back on track and then the fumbles jump in. We go the long drive, end up with a field goal, but get really close to scoring a couple of times, good drives, get another good drive, and then fumble, fumble. That doesn’t help anybody. That really hurts getting into a routine.”
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Keith Taylor is sports editor for Kentucky Today. Reach him ay Keith.taylor@kentuckytoday.com or via Twitter at @keithtaylor21.
One Response
The turnovers are killers. I believe the data show that a turnover, on average, costs a team about 3 points and about 30 yards of field position.
However, UK’s turnovers are not all due to Rodriguez, and Rodriguez is not even the player with the most turnovers to his debit so far this season. Levis has thrown 5 interceptions. In addition, the problem of putting the ball on the ground is not defined solely by fumbles lost, but by the total number of times UK has put the ball on the ground. Thus far, UK has fumbled 14 times, losing 6. Those other 8 fumbles are also costly, resulting in less yardage on a play and often yielding negative yardage rather than plus yardage, thus serving to end UK possessions.
I understand why Rodriguez is getting so much focus because he handles the ball so often in this offense, but Levis handles the ball on every play the team runs, and his fumbles and interceptions must end.
I support the coaches’ decision to start Levis. They see these players every day, and as a fan, I don’t. Nevertheless, I have to wonder if the coaches haven’t wasted early-season opportunities to give Allen more game snaps to prepare him for game action during this critical stretch of the season, especially if Levis continues to put the ball on the ground and throw it to the other team.