KSR Monday Huddle: Kentucky training camp concludes

On Saturday, Kentucky wrapped up their 2021 fall training camp with the second preseason scrimmage of the season. Classes get kicked off this week and that means the football team is back to a normal schedule.

Normal is a word many want to hear after the COVID-19 season in 2020 followed by what was a rocky offseason for a multitude of reasons. The Wildcats will begin game prep this week as all eyes are on beginning a much anticipated 2021 season.

First Down: Program addresses off-field charges

On Thursday, six second-year Kentucky football players were charged with burglary. R.J. Adams, JuTahn McClain, Andru Phillips, Earnest Sanders IV, Vito Tisdale, and Joel Williams all received burglary charges of the first degree. Tisdale received an additional wanton endangerment charge stemming from an off-campus house party hosted by fraternity Alpha Sigma Phi on March 6.

Those six players pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on Friday and are scheduled to have their preliminary hearing this week. Mark Stoops addressed the issue on Saturday and confirmed the players are not currently practicing with the team. Previously, the university conducted an investigation and cleared the players to rejoin the team after 11 weeks of being away from the program.

“After the school review, it warranted them coming back to activity,” Stoops said. “With this, this is different. It’s something that we have to weed through. I’m not sure when they’ll be back. The legal process needs to play out. I need to see in this discovery if there’s something that we didn’t know about.

“We don’t have all that information and their attorney’s don’t have all that information yet. When they receive that info and we get the discovery, we’ll make decisions from there.”

“Anytime there’s situations like that, we take it very serious and we address it and we look at it. We did. Is there new information that we don’t know about? I’m not sure. That’s what we have to look at, but they deserve an opportunity to defend themselves. We’ll let that process play out.”

Kentucky will now play the waiting game as this off-field incident goes through the court system.

Second Down: Passing game hype continues during training camp

The addition of new offensive coordinator Liam Coen gave the Kentucky football program a jolt of energy heading into the 2021 offseason. That optimism only increased during fall training camp.

Throughout the preseason, there have been some really promising developments for the offense. Penn State transfer Will Levis took over the quarterback position early, Izayah Cummings is making big waves as a flex tight end, and Nebraska transfer Wan’Dale Robinson appears to look the part.

Even the defense is taking notice.

“It’s a unique question because I would say yes and no,” defensive coordinator Brad White told KSR on Thursday after being asked if the defense is farther ahead than normal in fall camp. “Yes, I do feel like I can make certain tweaks to certain things, almost gameplan-ish type adjustments to get us ready or to try to combat what we’re seeing in practice.

“The no piece being that, they’re facing a different style of offense and when they go through their install, it feels like there’s a lot of coaching that you have to do to combat that offense. Whereas some of the tweaks in the past where if we were going against the same offense that we had the last several years, yeah I would feel probably more ahead against that offense. I feel less ahead against playing our offense, but more ahead from being able to gameplan, adjust, and mid-flight adjust, if that makes sense.”

The complexity of the passing game is giving what should be a solid SEC defense some trouble in practice. That can’t be a bad thing for Kentucky’s offensive outlook in 2021.

Third Down: Vegas has dropped Week 1 numbers

The betting spread for the season opener has been public for quite some time. Kentucky is a huge 29-point favorite over ULM and first-year head coach Terry Bowden. On Sunday, the totals were released.

College Football 🏈
Week 0 & Week 1 Lines pic.twitter.com/0JiDO6XyWK

— Circa Sports (@CircaSports) August 22, 2021

With the over/under sitting at 56, the projected final score for week one is 42.5-13.5. We should expect to see plenty of points from the offense in the Coen/Levis/Robinson debut at Kroger Field.

In their last nine non-conference games, the under is just 1-8 against the spread for Kentucky. The only under that stuck was the team’s most recent outing in the Gator Bowl where the Wildcats squeaked out a 23-21 win.

Kentucky is 7-1 against the spread in their last eight non-conference games.

The week ahead at KSR

Mark Stoops and his two coordinators will head to Louisville on Monday for a preseason luncheon with UK alumni. KSR’s Nick Roush will be in attendance to provide updates. After that, there should be a pair of media opportunities where the program will take and answer questions following the conclusion of training camp.

Podcasts will drop later in the week as all eyes point to Week Zero when Nebraska and Illinois officially kickoff the 2021 season on Saturday afternoon. College football can’t get here soon enough.