Mark Stoops, Bush Hamdan want Kentucky offense to be quicker, but not hurry

“We’re going to run 100 plays a game and be the fastest offense in the country!” Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said Friday, clearly tongue-in-cheek. It’s up there with questions regarding targets for the tight ends or the general fascination with backup quarterbacks.

“Oh man, I think I lose sleep over the tempo question and you guys come in here and ask me (about it),” Hamdan added.

That’s to be expected when you take over an offense that ranked last in FBS with just 714 plays, good for a hair short of 55 per contest. Delay of game penalties made you want to pull your hair out, watching that play clock trickle down to zero as Kentucky struggled to get its complex calls in with efficiency. Mark Stoops made it clear Monday during his Lexington Kickoff Luncheon that he is “tired of snapping it with one second on the clock” and wanted to “have some rhythm, some tempo in the offense.”

Music to fans’ ears, right? Bring back those air raid sirens, the Cats are letting it fly, all gas and no brakes in 2024.

Well, slow down a bit — just not too much.

“I want everybody to understand this, I’ve said it 20 times — yes I do (want to play faster), but I’m not trying to be a tempo offense,” Stoops said at UK Media Day. “We’re not trying to be Ole Miss or Tennessee and some of those teams that do it exceptionally well and snap it with 30 seconds on the play clock. That’s a different style and it’s very difficult to defend, and they do it very well. But we can’t be that overnight.”

And that’s what he said at the Kickoff Luncheon, as well — “We’re not sitting here saying we’re going to try to snap the ball with 30 seconds on the clock” was the exact quote — but it was the ‘tired of snapping it with one second on the clock’ line that got fans riled up. The Kentucky head coach wanted to clarify exactly what he means and his vision for the offense under Bush Hamdan this fall.

More snaps, definitely, but not in a panicked rush, not in a hurry to go three-and-out in a matter of seconds. Just a calculated pace that finds that happy medium with consistency.

“I just also don’t want to snap it with two, three and four seconds on the play clock, either. I’d like to see more snaps. There’s going to be a balance there,” Stoops said. “We’re not trying to be in a complete hurry, we’re just trying to be more efficient and get in a rhythm, get some more plays. Any of these offensive coordinators have that ability to go super fast, to go medium, to go at the line.

“I think just trying to get in a rhythm and hopefully get some more snaps, that also comes from getting first downs. If we get first downs, guys are going to get more touches. You have to make sure you’re still putting them in a position to be successful.”

That includes all facets of the game, everything going hand in hand — not just the offense being more efficient. For Kentucky’s best playmakers to get the ball and produce, the defense has to execute and get stops just as much as the special teams unit needs to flip the field and avoid miscues.

“Defense getting off the field, special teams putting us in a good position, offense getting first downs, you do that,” Stoops added. “Then we’re not going to sit here after games saying, ‘Why did so and so only get so many of this and so many of that?’ Because we only had 55 plays, 60 plays. That’s frustrating because I do feel like we have some playmakers, but we have to get first downs and then we’ll get more touches.”

When necessary, though, Kentucky has got to be able to cook offensively. Plays have to get in and the Cats have to be able to move the ball in a timely manner. Hamdan has seen it and knows what that looks like, and he’ll do it in Lexington.

“I think the biggest thing with tempo in our systems that we’ve had, if you go back to the tape, I think about last year at Memphis, we get down and I think we put 17 points up in like seven minutes,” he said. “We have the ability to play extremely fast.”

But there are also times you want to milk the clock and grind wins out the old-fashioned way. Knowing the right time and place for both will be crucial in this next era of Kentucky football.

“We always want to be somewhere in the middle, and what that means is to have the flexibility, depending on how the game is going, to do whatever it takes to win the football game. I think that’s important for us all to know,” Hamdan added. “For me, the checklist in fall camp is we’ve got periods where we are playing as fast as anybody in the country. One-word plays, getting up there, snapping the ball within seven seconds.

“We also have that focus where we can huddle, operate, execute and take time off the clock. I know everybody wants to play fast, it always comes back down to execution with us. The thing I want you guys to know is, we are going to have the ability to play fast and keep people on their feet.”