Mark Stoops On Kentucky Football's First Fall Scrimmage

The threat of lightning in the Lexington area split Saturday’s Kentucky Football scrimmage between the team’s indoor and outdoor facilities. The Wildcats avoided getting wet during its time under the clouds over Kroger Field, and a roar from inside the stadium suggested the day ended on a thrilling note for one side of the ball, although which side is unclear.

Afterward, Mark Stoops made it clear that he likes where his team is after its first scrimmage and with two weeks remaining in training camp, but he expects more moving forward.

“I like where we’re at; I do,” he said at Saturday’s press conference. “I think we’ve got to keep on track and put the foot on the gas and, you know, good things can happen day to day.”

Keep reading for other quotes and notes from Saturday’s scrimmage and Stoops’ post-scrimmage interview at Kentucky’s Joe Craft Football Training Facility.

Not at full strength

Stoops didn’t have Kentucky’s full complement of players in pads for the team’s first full-speed scrimmage of fall camp.

“We’re not at full strength right now, nothing major.” he admitted in his opening remarks. “In a scrimmage with not all your pieces put together, there’s gonna be some some good and some ugly. We got to just individually take care of ourselves and just get better.”

Barion Brown, Khalil Saunders, Darrion Henry-Young, and Keeshawn Silver were among the non-participants. 

The best news of the day? No new injuries.

Explosive plays

In addition to the relatively clean injury report, a second positive takeaway from Stoops’ remarks about the scrimmage was the offense’s ability to hit explosive plays. Playing without one of Kentucky’s stars in Barion Brown, Devin Leary still flashed his potential in some of his first full-go reps in Lexington.

“It was really good to see him be comfortable in there,” Stoops said. “There’s things that he did extremely well and there’s some areas where he’ll see that he needs to just be more patient an go through the progression, but we hit some some good plays.”

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Defense stopped the run, limited scores

The defense may have given up some big plays, but Stoops was still pleased by its ability to stop the run up front and limit the offense’s scores.

“Pretty solid against the run,” said Stoops. “We gave up a few explosive passes, but then, you know, buckled back down and kept them out of the end zone for the most part.”

Even without a couple of D-linemen, Stoops noted there weren’t many explosive runs from the offense. “Our front of the defense is pretty solid.”

In the secondary, Stoops said his new cornerbacks have been solid and made some breaks on the ball. “We feel like we have some bodies to work with and we got to continue to progress.”

There is a competition to play the boundary opposite veteran Andru Phillips. Expect Maxwell Hairston and JQ Hardaway to fight for the spot throughout the season. Stoops couldn’t say who stood out from the cornerback group in Saturday’s action.

Jalen Geiger also earned praise at safety as he returns from last year’s season-ending knee surgery.

Running backs got a bunch of reps

Some spots are pretty secure in fall camp, but the running back room still has to shake out its rotation for the start of the season. Ray Davis is RB1 and he participated in Saturday’s scrimmage, but Stoops added, “He’s played a lot of snaps, you know, so we were able to get some other guys in. It’s gonna be by committee and we have some guys with some versatility.”

Stoops was then asked how much the play-action will be used now that Liam Coen has the playbook back in his hands. He replied, “I mean, we are who we are, and I don’t want to give away our whole game plan.”

And that’s how Saturday’s eight-minute conversation concluded.

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