Everything Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops had to say previewing South Carolina

On Monday, Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops spoke to the local media in Lexington to preview the Wildcats’ matchup with South Carolina this weekend. Here’s everything he had to say.

Opening statement

“We’ll get back on Saturday briefly. Once again, just proud of our team, the way we handled things, played relatively clean, played hard. Once again, I have to acknowledge the fans — it was incredible. What a great atmosphere, to hang around and wait for us two hours plus and then give us a lot of inspiration coming out. I understand the Cat Walk out here, which we weren’t able to do, was completely jammed. Hopefully we’ll get to do that here this week. I call them to show up again. Excited about opening SEC play here this week. Obviously, the competition improves greatly. One thing about that (Southern Miss) game, I thought we did some really good things but there are a ton of mistakes and so many things we can improve on. That’s exciting for us, to get back to work and really that’s our focus, our daily habits. What are we going to do, what are we going to sacrifice to improve, to get better today with our short-term goals and look to improve? Once again, South Carolina a team we always seem to have good games with through my many years here. Always a very good game, always evenly matched. We’re looking forward to that challenge. Call on that home crowd to once again show up like they did last week and make a difference. We greatly appreciate them, so getting ready for South Carolina starting today.”

On teachable moments from Week 1 to harp on for this week

“There are many, many things. And, you saw that, you probably watched the opening day of football, leading up to our game with the ability to watch some games Thursday, Friday and then we played so late Saturday there was some time in between to watch. I try to bring up a lot of things to the players to head it off before it happens, because it is just normal. The kids are all amped up and excited about that first game, but you really have to focus on your job and do your primary responsibility first. I think there were a lot of good teaching moments on that being done, and then there are some moments where you’re playing somebody new, the reaction time is different. That’s when you have to rely on your rules and doing your job. I’m a DB guy, I’m a defensive guy at heart, and I use it with the players. They’re busy watching the game when they’re out there playing. They can’t watch the game when they’re out there playing ball. They have to read their keys and do their job and then play football. But there is no room for them to view what’s going on. Vision, yes, vision is important but taking care of your job and doing your primary responsibility, reading your keys and all those things, it starts there.”

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On not playing a full game vs. Southern Miss and how that impacts things for this weekend

“No, that part of it, no. We ramped up very hard in camp and were ready to play. I do think you have to understand in game one, as we talked about last week, of them controlling their emotions, controlling their breathing, controlling all of that. That was a challenge when you tee off two hours plus after when you’re supposed to. Then we get out there, and we did have long drives, we were pushed, our guys are in good shape, that part of it I’m not worried about, but to the beginning part of your question, yeah, it does bother me that we didn’t get a lot of reps for some guys that could’ve gotten reps. There are some players that work extremely hard that we wanted to see in a game-like situation. We had a big lead, so that part of it is disappointing. I also think for the offense, getting in rhythm, as I mentioned postgame, 16 first downs at half and I think one possession in the second half, 18 first downs, I would have loved to have seen us continue to move the ball and get some yards and get some plays in and try to continue to build on the rhythm that we found in the second quarter. But it is what it is.”

On Kentucky’s special teams play

“Special teams were really solid, really good. We have to continue to improve, continue to build on that, but they were really solid. We knew that there was probably no chance that they would kick the ball to Barion (Brown), so we were very prepared for some short kicks and you can see we exploited that with a big return on the opening kickoff return. Willie (Rodriguez) had a nice return there, we worked that, we expected some form of a short kick, a squib, pooch, whatever. But we didn’t feel like in any way they were going to kick the ball to Barion.”

On Kentucky’s third down defensive play

“It just goes to the point I was making earlier. Just seeing different plays, being amped up. You have to play with clean vision, clean eyes and do your job, and guys were getting a little antsy running themselves out of position. But we just executed better, bottom line, we executed better. We mixed it up, and we have to continue to do that. Sometimes for Coach (Brad) White and any defense, it is what it is. Maybe you’re going to be in man, maybe you’re going to bring five, maybe you’re going to bring six, but you’ve got to win some one-on-ones as well.”

On the Wildcats’ offensive line play and getting them going

“I thought the coaches did a nice job of mixing it up and mixing up the run game, hitting them with some perimeter stuff, stretching it out, hitting downhill, just a good mixture.”

On how UK running back Jason Patterson has seized his opportunity

“I think the opportunity he had in the spring to get a lot of reps, he made the most of it. He is one of those guys that is pretty serious. He is locked in on his daily goals and he works hard daily, he kind of puts his head down and keeps his mouth shut and works hard. He is worried about just getting better. I don’t mean that in any selfish way, he just wants to help the team and he wants to get better and I love that attitude.”

On LaNorris Sellers

“Yeah, he is a dual threat guy. He is big, he is strong, he can throw the heck out of the ball down the field. You saw that, you see the arm talent. I think (he is) a very good football player that is going to get better with every snap he takes. Every game, every rep, he’ll improve. A very good physical guy with a lot of attributes. He can run, he can throw, he seems like a very mature young man. So, obviously, I think everything you read and see about him, takes the game very seriously and works very hard at it.”

On South Carolina’s pass rushing ability

“Yeah, they have a really good combination with five (Kyle Kennard) and six (Dylan Stewart). You can see them both out there, you can’t miss them. You might get their numbers confused. One is a very mature, older player that is an impact player in Kyle Kennard, and then with Dylan Stewart, the five-star freshman, a big-time player, very disruptive. Those guys are very good players. They’re athletic, they get off on the football, they attack, but they also have a nice feel. When they (Old Dominion) tried to bait them up field and run some draws and things of that nature, they read it well and retraced well, so they’re good football players.”

On UK offensive lineman Jager Burton

“He did good, he is getting better. He is going to be pushed by Coach (Eric) Wolford and all of us, and I think he is growing. There is still a play or two that he needs to finish better. We had a couple opportunities had he finished cleaner, but there are a lot of guys that I could say that about. We’re striving for improvement, but he is certainly getting better.”

On using recent losses to South Carolina as potential motivation for his team

“It’s always new team, new year. You’ve heard me say that a hundred times, whether it’s dealing with bad streaks, good streaks you name it – every year is a new year. With that being said, you always try to learn from teams you play, maybe things that pop up, things that have happened. We’re always going to try to learn and grow from mistakes or things that have happened and things of that nature. I don’t know, is juice overrated? We need to be prepared. We need to be prepared and our guys, after a two hour and 20-minute delay last week, they had juice. But it’s really about going out and executing and playing, so I think the fact that it is a conference game this early definitely amps things up a little bit.”

On offensive tempo

“Well, I think you saw that with plays. We had a good number of plays (35 in the first half, 42 total) and again how many times have you heard me say ‘you’re going to distribute the football if you first downs.’ We want explosive plays, I think we found a nice mixture. We created some explosives, but we also moved the ball and the tempo of the operation was better, wasn’t perfect by any stretch. We’ve got to clean up some things formationally and all the different nuances – there is quite a bit that goes on pre snap with our offense. And Coach Bush (Hamdan) talks about that constantly, that we have to win the pre-snap because there’s a lot going on with formations, motions, shifts and then executing because if you can do that effectively it puts some pressure on some guys.”

On having no false starts in the opener

“I don’t think we had any false starts. I did have to burn two timeouts. I went into the game saying, ‘Hey, I will burn the timeouts.’ I wasn’t panicking about that. If something wasn’t perfect, let’s just call a timeout, regroup and get them settled in because, again, there’s a lot going on. I like where we’re headed – we have some more work to do.”

On UK quarterback Brock Vandergriff’s play

“Yea, I agree, I think he made very good decisions. I thought Brock, as I mentioned post-game, I thought he played like I thought he would play and I had a lot of confidence in him going into the game, and I think he delivered. Does that mean he played perfect or anything like that? No. He knows, he’ll be the first to admit that there are things that we need to improve on but I thought his pocket awareness was very good. In practice, it’s hard to simulate all of that all the time but the fact that he could step up and scramble when he had to buy time to throw the ball, throw in rhythm and on time, he did all those things. He’s not going to be perfect, no quarterback is. With all that decision-making, there’s a lot that goes on, there’s a lot that they’re reading and then they have to feel all that pressure. As you just mentioned, we’re certainly not going to be as comfortable this week with South Carolina’s defensive front and the way they can pressure the quarterback, so we got to make sure we have a very good plan for that, but he played very good and it was good to see. I thought he played like a confident quarterback. He didn’t seem like a first-year starter, so hopefully, he can continue to improve on that.”

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On if this is the best defense UK has had

“I don’t know, that’s to be determined. I’m not ready to anoint them yet. I don’t want any of that. There’s things that we need to improve on a great deal from this game. I just want to see us stay in the daily focus and handle the things we need to do daily to help us today, improve on some of the things and the mistakes we’ve made, this week with our short-term goals of taking care of business here with our next game.”

On Bush Hadman calling three straight shot plays

“In our staff meeting yesterday I pointed that out to him, too. I told him I loved it. I loved the way he attacked it and went at it and that’s not always going to happen, or anything like that, but you have to mix things up, you have to. We went into it, we understood their defensive philosophy. A year ago, I think they gave up a lot of explosives. They talked about it in the preseason, about keeping things in front, so we went into it with a mindset of hitting some intermediate stuff and working those chains as I mentioned and then when we have our shots – hit them. There was a few that we missed also. We checked out of one that we had a shot and it was the right coverage for the right shot but we missed it. And so, just continue to work at it but I’ve noticed that with coach all the way from spring – he’s not afraid to get the ball down the field. It was an incredible throw, you know what I mean? It was one of those ones that he was going to his left, had to turn and throw and threw a very good ball. At that point, you know, no excuses for Barion (Brown), it was raining and a little slippery and he didn’t bring it in. And it was also one of those ones where it was definitely hanging in over the middle, you know you’re going to take a shot, too, but we’ll get the next one.”

On UK kicker Alex Raynor’s consistency

“He’s a very good player. It’s probably fair to say he’s a little more consistent. I had an expectation when he came in he was a good kicker and he’s done that.”

On UK running the football

“I thought that was a point I made Saturday morning in one of our meetings with our team that I wanted to be able to run the ball when the whole stadium knew we were going to run the ball. I think we got going in the run game but we’re going to continue to improve and we need to. And we have to continue to challenge them. I felt confident in our running backs with no problem and I felt confident in our O-line. We just have to get on the same page and we have to do it. I told you after the game that was my fault on the 4th-&-1. I think you all know me, watched me over the years, I am going to be calculated with that but pretty aggressive when the time’s right and depending on the opponent and the situation and the whole deal. Not that I regret it, we go up two scores and you go up 10 nothing– you know I felt good about making that field goal, as you pointed out with Alex (Raynor) being pretty steady but again, I got confused on the chains with that melee going on over there. You know 4th &1 in that situation, at the moment I’m like, ‘Guys this is my bad, I was confused, I didn’t see the chains.’ And you only have so much time, you don’t want to get a delay of game (penalty), so when I see those sticks and you’re substituting 11 guys, I want to get that operation going so they’re not rushed and get a delay and all that. But again, no excuses just the situation was what it was.”

On South Carolina’s run game

“I think part of that is just like us as well, with Sellers pulling it down some, too, and reading it and checking it, and we had some of that as well. I’m sure they want to be balanced, but anytime you have a quarterback that’s dual threat, it could add a few more runs in there as well, and there’s reads on there – a lot of their run plays have screens and bubbles and RPOs and things of that nature that any quarterback, ours included, as you keep on playing, you feel more comfortable mixing it up and sprinkling in some of those throws. If I could go back real quick, last year we had second-and-two and we had one that we could run or we could throw, and it kills me that we didn’t hand it, we throw the ball backwards and lose seven yards instead of going out, could’ve scored, so… anyway. I don’t know why that just jumped into my mind.”

On comparing Vandergriff to former UK quarterbacks like Will Levis and Devin Leary

“Well, if you think about it, when we took Will, he hadn’t thrown very many, matter of fact, don’t quote me exactly, but there’s more, you could look it up, there’s more, I know you guys got a lot of time to look things up, but I could argue that there’s probably more film on Brock, than there was on Will Levis, of seeing what we’re looking at. But, to your point, we did put a lot of faith and confidence in Brock because we believed in him, and what we did see on film we liked. Again I go back to, he’s coming from a program, you know how well coached he was, and how complex they are. (When) We’re playing Georgia, they’re not just good players, they’re very well coached, and so when we were taking somebody like Brock from there, who was their backup, you saw his operation, you saw the way he was coached, you saw the way he played in high school, you felt pretty good about it.”

On the turnover margin

“Well, again, that’s a stat that you have time to go look at, I watch the games and I will say, starting with last week, turnover margin is big in every game, especially evenly matched games, so that’s always a factor and always important to us.”

On UK defensive backs opposite of Maxwell Hairston

“DJ, we’re trying to get DJ back and healthy, I think that could help us bring some depth, and we wanted to get Nasir (Addison), Nasir was about to go in and get some reps as well, and I would have liked to have seen that, but JQ (Hardaway) did a nice job and Jantzen Dunn is a guy that we can play on the inside a little bit but also at corner and is coming along, So, both guys I think will get better as they continue to get some reps under their belt.”

On UK defensive back Alex Afari Jr.

“I thought those guys popped as well, I thought the top four linebackers inside really played well. D-Jack (D’Eryk Jackson) on the interception really made that interception (by tipping the ball), he’s a steady guy, he’s played a lot for us. (Jamon) Dumas-Johnson always plays well, I think you see him turn it, when the game comes on he can turn it up another notch, he packs a big punch. With (Daveren) Rayner, you see him, he has good instincts and is very fast, very sudden, and I thought Alex also showed up and there’s things he could be better at. It’s his first time really playing in there, and again he could put a little inside, a little outside, but he definitely showed some pop, or some athleticism, some suddenness, and I think he’s going to get better.”

On UK defensive lineman Tre’vonn Rybka

“I thought Tre’vonn had a very good game, he’s a guy that has played a lot of football for us. I’d like to see him take another step, and I thought this first game showed that, I thought he was disruptive, did his job. A lot of times those interior defensive linemen are unsung guys, nobody talks about them because they’re doing a lot of dirty work and cleaning things up inside there. I thought he played very well, and I thought he showed a lot of growth, because Tre’vonn has a tendency to be, he’s an emotional guy and there was one late hit in particular, and I don’t think it was called, but there were some things going on after the play and normally he would respond in a different way. He was very frustrated by it but, that’s the unselfishness we’re looking for, it takes a bigger, stronger man to take that penalty, just like when we’ve got a gift when someone hit us late and it would have been third-and-one on the goal line, one or two. Those aren’t give-mes, they have a chance to stop us, a chance to turn it over, they gave us a new set of downs, it was good by our guys not retaliating. I talked long, a lot about that, it’s early in the year, again all the emotions, I’ve watched a lot of football, you see things happening all the time of just being an unselfish football team and a smart football team and having a high IQ. We’ve got to be that way, we cannot beat ourselves, and football 101, you can’t beat anybody until you stop beating yourself. I try to beat that into our guys’ heads and it’s hard in today’s world to be extremely unselfish and play for everybody else, but I think we have a really good group and I think this is a good start to build from.”

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