Kentucky Defense Fails to Meet High Standard

The woeful Kentucky offense will dominate the conversation around the Big Blue Nation, but the defense hasn’t been much better. To put it plainly, Brad White was pissed off after the loss to Auburn.

“They just ran it down our throat. They ran it down our throat,” said the Kentucky defensive coordinator. “We had opportunities on third down to execute and we talked about it last, we’ve talked about it all year. You have to execute the play-call and we gotta go back to the drawing board and see what can we execute because obviously we’re not executing at a high enough level right now.”

White added, “I was surprised how we got pushed around up front and that’s the bottom line.”

Auburn did most of its damage in the final three quarters on the shoulders of Jarquez Hunter. The bruising running back ripped off rips of 45, 46, and 50 yards, finishing his day with a career-high 278 yards and two touchdowns. Hunter’s performance is a week after Jadan Baugh rushed for five touchdowns and DJ Lagway completed five passes of 40+ yards.

Ahead of the Florida game, Kentucky ranked No. 3 nationally in total defense, allowing only 251.2 yards per game. Over the last two weeks, the Kentucky defense has given up 478 yards per game.

Bad Kentucky Offense Leading to Bad Kentucky Defense?

I asked Mark Stoops after the game if the offense’s struggles were bleeding over to the defense. It can be demoralizing for one unit when they’re not getting any help from the other. Stoops dismissed it.

“I don’t think that’s it,” said Stoops. “I think – we are more affected by the bodies that we have and the health that we are in.”

Stoops didn’t want to make an excuse, and neither did Brad White. Everybody’s banged up in October. The guys behind the starters should be dying for an opportunity. When they get it, they gotta know what they’re supposed to be doing.

“There’s no excuse. Everybody’s going through that,” said the defensive coordinator. “Everybody’s got beat up guys. Backups have to step up when they go in the game. And when the backups go in the game, they have to know what to do. They rep it in practice. They’ve gotta execute. I’ve gotta go back and look. If it’s too much for them to execute, I need to re-evaluate.”

He added, “If it’s we need to simplify, if we need to go in another direction, all options are on the table.”

There is only one option that White is giving his defense. This is unacceptable.

“This is where we have to have resilience and we gotta be able to shake things off and we got to be able to keep playing. We will,” he said.

“There’s a standard that we have to play to, a standard that’s been set by guys who have come before and that standard was not even close to set. We talked about it in the bye week. We talked about coming out of that Ole Miss game, how they played, they set a bar and a standard for what this defense should be and how they should be. And it doesn’t matter who’s in or who’s hurt, coaches included, we have got to play to that level. There is no other option.”

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