Mark Stoops addresses Kentucky's struggles in short-yardage situations

In the game of football, every offense’s goal is the same – get in the endzone. Even so, Mark Stoops says Kentucky isn’t afraid to take their wins on that side of the ball where they can find them either.

Stoops addressed the Wildcat’s inability to finish drives, last season and at times during fall camp, in a press conference this weekend. With the objective being the same still, he did recognize that UK needs to get back to their offensive success from 2021 when Liam Coen helped them score 32.3 points per game and made them far more efficient once they got to the redzone.

“Just be more efficient, be better,” Stoops said. “Two years ago, we were more efficient in getting in the redzone. We’ve got to get back to that.”

However, Stoops knows that, while three isn’t six, it’s certainly better than zero. With that said, he knows that also means that his team will need to clean up some of their kicking issues from a season ago as well.

“Ultimately, you’ve got to win games though. If you have to kick the field goal? We’ve got to get it through and get the points,” said Stoops. “You win by any means necessary. We had a few of those last year as well.”

Once Coen left, Kentucky’s offense freefell from that 32.3 ppg. mark down to 20.4. They found the endzone 1.6 times less per game from one year to the next. The Wildcat’s numbers also dropped when kicking extra points, 96.4% down to 92.6%, as well as when kicking field goals, 76.9% down to 66.7%.

Long story short, Kentucky couldn’t finish drives last season and finding enough points was a serious issue for them all season long. With Coen back in the bluegrass, though, he, Stoops, and the Wildcat offense are hoping all those problems will be rectified and they’ll go back to running as efficiently as they were before he left for the NFL.

Stoops shares what still needs cleaned up for Kentucky

With just under two weeks until Kentucky’s season opener, Mark Stoops isn’t satisfied. On Saturday, the Kentucky head coach detailed what his ‘Cats still need to improve.

“There’s still been some pre-snap things. We’ve just got to try to be as perfect as we can,” Stoops told the press. “Turnovers and ball security has been relatively good and that needs to stay. But there’s still some pre-snap penalties and some things of that nature that we’ve just got to be cleaner and not beat ourselves.”

Penalties will make or break a team in close games. Kentucky didn’t see yellow flags constantly last season, but they certainly weren’t perfect. The ‘Cats received 5.69 penalties per game, tied for the 52nd-least nationally.