Brad White wants to see 'pride in performance' from Kentucky's defense

The Kentucky defense hit a slump in October. After a strong start to the season that include slowing down Georgia and Ole Miss offenses to give the team a chance to win, UK saw some regression in October in losses to Vanderbilt, Florida, and Auburn. Brad White‘s unit lost the line of scrimmage battle and gave up plenty of explosive plays with Florida and Auburn posting season-high totals in passing yards and rushing yards.

In the Week 10 loss to Tennessee, UK showed some improvement and more fight with a short-handed roster. Now White wants to see this defense stack some good performances together in the final three weeks of the season. That starts against a Murray State squad having a really, really tough year in the FCS.

But the opponent does not matter. Kentucky needs to play to a standard.

“Obviously, we gotta go out and we gotta perform. This is not a deal where you just roll the ball out and you feel great. You gotta take pride in performance. There are times that we’ve won a ballgame that you feel terrible because you didn’t particularly well. There are times that you never feel good after a loss, but there’s time that you can take pride in the performance that you put out. Sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way,” White explained on Wednesday. “Whatever the case is. It’s not moral victories, it’s not that. But there is a pride in performance level to it.”

“The key focus this week for us is we gotta take pride in performance. Everybody’s that’s on that field needs to pride in their performance and the standard that we set. So from the first snap to the last, I want to see guys straining, finishing, pinning ballcarriers to the ground. I don’t want it sloppy. I want it high energy and execution at a high level.”

Kentucky’s defense seems to believe that they are better than their last few performances. The goal in this final three-week stretch is to get back to playing to a standard and competing at a high-level. That could come with some fresh legs as the Wildcats look to get some younger players more snaps and as some injured Cats come off the inactive list.

The standard is the standard. Kentucky’s goal is to play to it. That starts on Saturday afternoon at Kroger Field.