SEC Network's Roman Harper calls Kentucky soft: "Florida is going to win this game"

Ahead of the 2022 season Kentucky was picked to finish second in the SEC East. After one Florida win, the tables have turned. The SEC Network’s Roman Harper is all in on the Gators when they take the field against the Wildcats Saturday night.

“Going into the season everybody had Kentucky above Florida. I probably did too, but after one game I’m completely off of that. I’m completely off of that,” Harper said on Tuesday’s Paul Finebaum Show.

“Florida is going to win this game, and I think they’re going to win it pretty handily too. It’s going to look dominant. I’m not trending toward a blowout, but it is in The Swamp and they do play better, they do play differently.”

Finebaum was completely caught off guard by Harper’s comments. Like most of us, his big ears perked up. He chuckled and asked, “You know what you’re doing right?”

“Use me as ammo. I’m the ammo guy. If you need it, I’m feeding you right now, Kentucky Wildcats,” Harper said. “But if you want to win this game, you gotta stop Florida up front. Kentucky looked a little bit softer, I hate using the word softer, but they were not as physical up front running the football. You can’t run for 50 yards.”

Mark Stoops will be a guest this evening on The Paul Finebaum Show. Surely this clip will be played for the SEC Network audience before the Kentucky head coach joins the program.

“Tell Coach Stoops I said it to motivate them. ‘Coach, y’all did not push anybody around. You were a little soft up front last week. That is not what I’m used to seeing out of a Kentucky offensive line. Also, they lost some production on the defensive side of the ball, so I anticipate Florida really dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. With the run game of Florida, the running backs to the quarterback and also defensive line.”

If Kentucky needed bulletin board material to get up for Saturday’s game in The Swamp, they got it.

As the interview concluded, Harper tried to walk back his comments slightly, but the cat was already out of the bag. “Kentucky, you’re not soft. I apologize.”

Similarities Between Anthony Richardson and Cam Newton

Roman Harper is not the first, nor will he be the last person to hop on the Billy Napier bandwagon after the win over No. 7 Utah. Anthony Richardson‘s outstanding performance ( 168 passing yards, 108 rushing and 3 touchdowns) has caused many talking heads to compare the Florida quarterback to Vince Young or Cam Newton after only one game as a starter. Harper is not exactly doing that, but as a former teammate of Newton on the Carolina Panthers, he knows all too well what kind of impact a running quarterback can have on a team’s energy.

“I was not all in on him before. I wanted to see more of him, I still need to see more of him in the pass game, but this kid is not normal. What do I mean by that? Anytime the option is out there to either hand it off to the running back or the quarterback pull it, most times you try to stop the running back. If I’m defending Florida, I want you to give it to the running back every time,” Roman Harper said.

“I do not want to see Anthony Richardson running up and down my sidelines because not only — the running back gets 5 yards, Anthony Richardson gets like 36 yards in a heartbeat. Not only does he get 36 yards, but everybody feeds off of that. It (creates) big energy off of that when he makes big plays like that. I’ve been around a quarterback who just excites and exudes confidence in the rest of the team. His name was Cam Newton. I’m not comparing the two. I’m just telling you the two examples that I have. When you have a really good athletic running quarterback, when he makes a big play in the run game what it does for everyone else around him.”

[The Paul Finebaum Show]

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for Vince Marrow to respond.

Calling our guys soft lol @UKFootball will never be soft trust me on that partner.

— CoachMarrowUK (@vincemarrow) September 7, 2022