Mark Stoops evaluates Kentucky's offensive line against Florida

For as dominant as the Kentucky Wildcats offense was on Saturday against the Florida Gators defense, there has not been much talk about the play of their offensive line in that game. While running back Ray Davis ran up and down the field on the Gators, a level of credit has to be given to the men in the trenches for creating running lanes for him all night. And head coach Mark Stoops was quick to give his offensive line some praise recently when evaluating their performance.

“I thought they played their best game of the year,” said Stoops. “They took some great pride in just straining of executing. We talked about the communication, and I thought there would be an improvement there with Eli at center. I think that showed improvement in the second week.

Kentucky did have some concerns along their offensive line in earlier weeks. So, to remedy Kentucky’s O-line problems, Stoops made a few changes to the unit, most notably making Eli Cox the Wildcats starting center.

“I think just their overall commitment and attitude in the past several weeks had paid off some in that game because they were obviously very motivated to get some movement at the first level and to really strain. And they did a good job.”

Against a stingy Florida defense that had allowed only 20 plus points in one matchup, their Week 1 defeat at Utah, the Kentucky offense put up 398 yards of total offense behind the play of their offensive line. And of those 398 yards, only 69 were through the air. Kentucky’s offensive plan against Florida was smash mouth, hat on a hat, old-school running hard between the hashes, and it was run to perfection. The Wildcats had 329 yards on the ground, with the majority of that (280) produced by Davis. Davis also had three rushing touchdowns and averaged 10.8 yards per carry in the Wildcats 33-14 victory.

On Saturday, Stoops and Kentucky will travel down to Athens, GA, to take on the top-ranked defending national champions, the Georgia Bulldogs. This will be a battle of two of the remaining three undefeated teams in the SEC. Georgia has looked vulnerable this season, especially in the rush defense department. So if the Wildcats’ offensive line can put on a repeat performance of what they did against the Gators to the Bulldogs, it would be hard to see any other outcome than Kentucky leaving Athens with an upset victory over the No. 1 team in the nation.