Coach Speak: Kentucky's Mark Stoops on Georgia

DawgsHQ has given you all we’ve got from Kirby Smart this week as Georgia prepares to take on Kentucky this weekend. Thanks to the folks at Kentucky Sports Radio, our On3 site covering the Wildcats, we’ve also got the ability to share with you what the head coach on the other sidelines, Mark Stoops, has had to say about the game as well…

Mark Stoops Opening Statement on Georgia

“I think it goes without saying, the challenge to go on the road, to Athens, to play Georgia, what a great opportunity. You have to credit Coach Kirby Smart, his staff, his players for what they have done and the consistency that they have had for many years. In particular the past two, to go on and win back-to-back national championships is very difficult to do and they do a great job. Everybody knows the players that they have, and it is certainly a uniquely talented football team across the board. They do a great job of recruiting.  The players are very good players but they work hard. They’re fundamentally sound and obviously they’re well coached.

“For us, it’s about us again, we need to go back this week and continue to build, continue to look at the way we’ve been practicing, the way we’ve been improving and look to take another step here this week. So that’s the challenge for us, to look to continue to grow. I think we left a lot on the field (vs. Florida). There’s a lot of things we can improve on and we have to concentrate on that.  I think it does give us confidence to show you what we can do when we put it together, but it has to motivate us to work on the areas where we are falling short because we are going to need to play a complete game here this week.”

Stoops on a preview of the Kentucky-Georgia matchup…

“It’s a challenge, obviously.  It’s a real challenge playing those guys. As I mentioned, I think they’re just a very good team. They are obviously talented, that goes without saying. I think I mentioned a year ago postgame and throughout the year, I don’t think they get enough credit for how well they’re coached as well.”

Stoops on what you attribute Georgia’s success to and is there any part of his program that you can incorporate here…

“I mean I said it three times already. You’d have to be a moron not to appreciate what they do.  They are pretty impressive. It’s all levels. They recruit at a very high level, they obviously work extremely hard at recruiting, they can recruit, they have a good base, but they work hard at it. They do a good job of recruiting and evaluating talent. They develop their talent and they coach them really well. You put all of those things together and it’s a pretty good combination.”

Mark Stoops on Brock Bowers…

(Coach says “Whew!” in the middle of the question, eliciting laughter from the media)

“Wow. Absolute freak. Absolute freak. And I mean that in the most complimentary way. What an incredible player. He’s selfless. You could tell he’s a complete player. He plays well without the football. He plays well with the football. He’s a team guy. You could tell that’s a great guy to work around right there. He steps up when they need him to but you know (he’s a) very unique player. I had the opportunity to be at Arizona when Gronk (Rob Gronkowski) was there and you know they’re just different players. Both unbelievably great and talented, just different, this guy’s something I haven’t seen before.” 

Stoops on Carson Beck… 

“I see a very good player that’s getting more and more comfortable every game. Heck, he’s throwing, I want to say, 70 percent completion percentage. Their yards per attempt is high as well, it’s over nine. When you’re throwing it 70% and over nine yards (per) completion, he’s playing at a very good level. And he’s just getting some guys back too. He’s getting his running backs back healthy. He’s getting (Ladd) McConkey back healthy. So, they’re getting better and better.” 

Stoops on if Georgia’s offensive scheme is much different that years past… 

“Not a ton. They still are very creative. Is there some differences? Of course, but they’re still Georgia, right? They still have incredible players, their run game is a bit of everything. They run zone, the zone schemes. They run gap schemes, they run their toss plays, they’ve always run. Very good with the play-action off of it. And how they get the ball to Bowers is very unique. They could get the ball to him many different ways. So, they’ve done a really good job.” 

Mark Stoops on getting your team ready for this type of stage…

“I’d like to believe that you have to learn from every opportunity. Each time you put yourself in a position … again, it’s about us and how will we handle it, how will we play? We’re on the road. With Vandy’s stadium being torn up and not having the ability to have that many fans there in an SEC environment, this will be the first time we take it in this type of environment. So, how are we going to handle that? I think every time you put yourself in that position, you better learn from it. You better grow from it in some way, shape or form. For us, it’s about continuing to build, continuing to play well, play clean, and do the things we’re doing.”

Stoops on the biggest improvement you need to see this week, both offensively and defensively, to play Georgia…

“Offensively we have to have some continuity and improve some of the basics of the pass game, we’ve done it throughout the year. As a matter of fact, until this past game, we were throwing the ball much cleaner than running it, this week it was vise-versa. We have to get back to being efficient throwing the football and we have to be balanced again. There was a stat I was looking at I know it’s ridiculous, it was something that you have to have some yards rushing or you don’t have a good chance of beating Georgia. We are going to try and be balanced, we can’t do it one way or the other. Balance will be key. Defensively, we need to continue to – we’re making big plays, we’re being very disruptive. The defensive line has been extremely disruptive, we’ve been very strong at the point of attack in the run game and also creating pressure. We’ve created some turnovers and we have to continue to that.”

Stoops on slowing down a guy like Brock Bowers…

“Well, I mean, heck — he made back-to-back one-handed catches the other day. They had him covered pretty good, so I don’t think we could put any more than two on him at any one point in time.  I think Brock is going to get his. He’s going to make plays. It’s kind of like going up against Michael Jordan or someone like that — you know they’re going to get theirs. But, we have to compete at a high level. We have to be on point with our coverage. We have to compete at a high level, we have to win our fair share of on one-on-ones as well. Because he’s going to make some plays, but we have to make ours when we have coverage, when we have a one-on-one, when we have a contested play with him we have to win our fair share as well.”

Mark Stoops on what makes the Kentucky-Georgia game so physical each year…

“I think both teams they know — with us, we try to build around that. We have a long, physical defense and up front, we’ve always prided ourselves on being able to run the ball. It was nice to get back to that this past week, and hopefully we’ll be able to match their physicality because they certainly are big, long, and athletic across the board. But our team will rise to the challenge. I think we’ve gone through a tough stretch here where our guys are beat up a little bit but, you know, no rest for the weary. We got to get back out here today and have a great week of prep.”