By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops has yet to beat Georgia in his tenure.
Stoops is 0-10 against the top-ranked Bulldogs, despite coming close, especially last season, when Georgia escaped with a 16-6 win at Kroger Field. Georgia has won 13 in a row in the series between the two Southeastern Conference rivals, dating back to 2009.
Kentucky, which has won its first five games for the third time in the past five years, is ranked No. 20 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll and is coming off a 33-14 win over Florida for a third straight win over the Gators.
Stoops likes the way his team has responded in this week’s practice.
“(We’ve had a) pretty solid week of practice ( and we’re) getting some guys healthy,” Stoops said. “The energy level is picking up (and) I believe our guys are ready to play. I addressed some things that I wasn’t really pleased with early in the week and they’ve been pretty focused toward the latter part of the week.”
Stoops and his offensive staff have focused on the passing game and putting together a complete game. The Cats rushed for 329 yards against Florida with running back Ray Davis rushing for 280 yards. Offensive coordinator Liam Coen would like to see the offense produce a more balanced attack.
“We’re really just focusing on playing a full game,” Coen said. “Executing a full game plan. We executed really well in the run game, but we didn’t execute worth a bit in the pass game. And on third down. So, we’re just really focusing on the situational football, every single phase of the offense, every single phase of the game plan.”
The passing game has yet to produce big numbers through the first five games and Coen is hopeful the Wildcats can put it all together Saturday.
“I think it’s a chemistry, it’s a connection,” Coen said. “We lead the country in drops, that’s not really a good thing. I just talked to the guys about there’s 24 hours in a day. You’re at school, you’re eating, you’re doing things, let’s get on the JUGS (machine), let’s get some extra work in. We had a great throwing session last night after practice with a bunch of guys. I think they want to do it, but we have to do it. We’re going to face the most competitive, physical catch team that we have faced so far up to this date. We have to fix it and we have to fix it in a hurry.”
In order to end the losing streak against the Bulldogs, Coen said the Wildcats must produce big plays in the passing.
“If we can execute that just a little bit better, that’s what we have to do in order to beat Georgia,” Coen said. “We need to focus on ourselves and execute at a higher level. If we play as physical as we did, with the same energy and juice, good things should happen.”
Gametracker: Kentucky at Georgia, 7 p.m., Saturday: TV/Radio: ESPN, UK Radio Network.