By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Kentucky football coach Will Stein isn’t taking Vanderbilt lightly.
“(The) last time I checked, they embarrassed Kentucky last year and so we know what they are able to do in all three phases,” Stein said during his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
The Commodores (3-4, 0-4 Southeastern Conference) defeated the Wildcats soundly last season, recording a 45-17 win in Nashville. Vanderbilt has won three of the last four games between the conference rivals and carries a two-game winning streak into Saturday’s contest.
Vandy hasn’t enjoyed the same success as last season and has lost its first four conference games, including a 31-21 loss to Arkansas, a setback that ended the Razorbacks’ 14-game losing streak against conference foes.
“Vanderbilt, I think, is a really good football team,” Stein said. “I don’t think any of us in this room or this organization need to be fooled by any type of record. … They have an elite head coach in Clark Lee. Just being around him a little bit in some of these SEC meetings, he really drives home the message for us as coaches to the AFCA and throughout the country. I think he’s extremely intelligent, really tough and one of the best head coaches in the country.”
The No. 12 Wildcats (6-1, 4-1) have won five straight, a streak that includes three consecutive conference victories. Kentucky rallied for a 21-13 win at Oklahoma last Saturday and enters the eighth week of the season tied with Georgia for first place in the conference standings.
Kentucky collected four interceptions against the Sooners and lead the league in turnover margin at plus 11. Stein said the team’s ballhawking defense has been a key to success and that forcing turnovers has been “vital.”
“Takeaways have literally got us to this point in the year, taking the ball away and protecting the football, and so we have to continue to work and find ways to get off the field on third down,” Stein said. “It’s not a ton of scheme. I think it’s just executing within the scheme and then getting the ball down.”
Stein said developing the team’s confidence level has been a “process” and reached a tipping point in a 31-21 win at Texas A&M on Sept. 19. It was the beginning of the team’s five-game winning streak.
“That showed our guys, and really everybody in our building, that you know what we do on a day-by-day basis,” he said. “This process that we’ve built does work. We just got to stick to it and we got to grow and evolve.
“These players have done an unbelievable job of buying into that process, which is not easy. It’s not easy even as a player and it’s just human nature to relax. These guys haven’t relaxed one bit and have continued to push and to get better.”
More honors
Kentucky safety Jordan Castell, the SEC Defensive Player of the Week, was also named Bronco Nagurski Trophy Player of the Week, Walter Camp Defensive Player of the Week and Thorpe Defensive Backer of the Week.
Next game: Vanderbilt at Kentucky, 7:30 p.m., Saturday. TV: SEC Network (Matt Schumacker, Aaron Murray and Taylor Davis. Radio: UK Radio Network (Tom Leach, Jeff Piecoro and Dick Gabriel).