Mark Stoops, Kentucky are mastering big play prevention

When Mark Stoops was hired at Kentucky in 2012, athletic director Mitch Barnhart made things clear at his introductory press conference. The Wildcats needed to improve on defense.

The previous defensive coordinator at Arizona and Florida State came to Lexington with a strong track record on that side of the ball. After a slow start, things took off in 2018 when the Wildcats finished sixth nationally in scoring defense (16.8). Once defensive coordinator Brad White took over in 2019, the Wildcats have a top-five yards per play allowed finish in the SEC to go along with a pair of top-five scoring defense finishes in the league.

Kentucky has accomplished this by mastering big play prevention and keeping everything in front in their zone-heavy scheme.

“The thing we’ve done here really well over the last several years is be at the top of the country in not allowing big plays, not allowing explosive plays,” White told the media before fall camp. “Call it what you will, bend don’t break, this or that, whatever you want to call it, when we keep the ball in front of us, we get an opportunity to make a play on the next play.”

The numbers were somewhat skewed in 2020 playing 10 SEC games with three coming against legitimate top-10 offenses — Alabama, Florida, and Ole Miss. However, the Wildcats ranked third nationally in 2019 by giving up just six plays of 40-plus yards all season. Last year, the defense allowed just six of those plays in two fewer games. Add this up with a ball-control offense, and Stoops has created his winning recipe in Lexington. Not many folks in the SEC do it better.

Ivan Maisel is a Senior Writer for On3.com who has covered college football for nearly four decades. On Friday, the award-winning journalist points out that Kentucky is elite at not giving up tons of points when compared to their SEC peers.

“But there’s a statistic about the Kentucky Wildcats over the past three seasons that explains how Mark Stoops has the second-longest tenure among SEC coaches, behind Nick Saban. In the past three seasons, Kentucky has allowed 40 points in regulation only once,” writes Maisel. “That’s tied with Georgia for best in the SEC. By comparison, Saban’s Crimson Tide is seventh in the league, having allowed 40 points five times.”

That individual occurrence happened in last year’s beatdown in Tuscaloosa when Kentucky’s roster was ravaged by COVID-19. Other than that, it has been quite the run for Kentucky on that side of the ball.

Being in the ballpark with Nick Saban and Kirby Smart is always a good idea. The Wildcats are a line of scrimmage program that wants to run the ball, use the kicking game effectively, and play good defense. That has happened over the last three years.

Now Kentucky must fix the passing game to take the next step. This program has checked about just about every other box under Stoops.