Kentucky Locker Room Vibe Check: How the Coaches are Keeping the Cats Locked In

The morale is not high around the Kentucky football program. It’s been a long time since folks have felt this low, but the Cats still have four more football games to play, including a pair of Top 10 road trips, starting this weekend at Tennessee. Fans can mope around, but the players can’t or they’ll physically get abused on the gridiron.

It begs the question, how do the coaches keep the players locked in despite the dreadful circumstances?

“It has always been a 1-0 mentality,” said offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan. “As hard as that can be, it’s really keep the focus, stay within the confines of what we have to get done.

“A lot of times that is obviously easier said than done. But these players have done a tremendous job with their attitudes and coming back to work every Monday; it is no different (today). We have to put a plan together for Tennessee, a really good team, and take that mentality.”

Kentucky has bounced back from a bad loss before. They did not do that in October, rattling off three straight losses as the betting favorites in Vegas. It’s hard for folks to be optimistic that another bounceback will happen, but there is one silver lining. Defensive coordinator Brad White relishes the chance just to get back out on the football field.

“If you have another opportunity to go on the field, you’ve got another opportunity to prove yourself. There is no worse feeling than ending on an embarrassing loss and they give you no more games,” said White.

“We’ve got an opportunity as a defense, as a team, to go back on the field and prove who we really are, to prove what this program is about. You either accept that challenge or you don’t. I’ve got great confidence in this group that they’re going to out, and they’re going to practice, and they’re going to practice hard, and they’re going to prep and they’re going to show up on Saturday ready to go. How that ends up playing out, we’ll all find out on Saturday night.”

Kentucky Defense Demoralized by the Offense?

The offense has not been good at all this year, but they were good enough to win at No. 6 Ole Miss. The Kentucky defense played incredible in Oxford. It’s been on a steady decline ever since, particularly against the run. Florida stayed ahead of the chains as Jadan Baugh rushed for five touchdowns, then Jarquez Hunter picked up a career-high 278 yards at Kroger Field.

How did a Top 10 rushing defense devolve into that? My theory is that the dam broke. Turnovers gave the offense the ball at the 11-yard line and the 40-yard line in consecutive games and they scored zero points. It’s difficult to continue playing hard when you’re not getting any help from the other side of the line of scrimmage. Brad White isn’t giving his unit that excuse.

“Honestly, if you’re a mentally tough football team the only thing that matters is the next series. It shouldn’t matter the score, it shouldn’t matter where the field position is, it shouldn’t matter. If you’re what you want to be as a defense, every time you step across that line you take it as a challenge, however you got there. If you’re worried how it got there, you’re worrying about the wrong thing,” said the Kentucky defensive coordinator.

“To say momentum doesn’t play a part in football or in sports is completely … that’d be to say you have complete blinders on. It does (matter), the momentum.  But as far as going out on the field and whatever happened after a forced turnover, or this or that, you’re worried about the wrong thing if you’re too worried about that. We’ve got to go back out and force another one. We’ve got to go back out and worry about the next play, force it to second down, force it to third down and get off the field. That’s where our eyes, our vision needs to be.”

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.