Kentucky is three days away from preparing a game plan for its season-opener against Southern Mississippi.
Until then, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops and his staff will be busy putting the finishing touches on fall workouts and developing a depth chart for the upcoming season. After reviewing the tape from the final scrimmage of the preseason Saturday, Stoops noticed more good than bad on both sides of the ball.
“I felt like we made a big jump defensively,” Stoops said Monday. “As I touched on after the scrimmage, depth is an issue, but we’re gonna be just fine. As you piece it all together and put everyone together, move some guys around, we’re going to be in good shape.”
A struggle in his first three seasons with the Wildcats, Stoops said the team’s depth is improving. The Kentucky coach said the biggest gains have occurred on the offensive side of the ball.
“I do feel like we’re getting where we need to be — when you’re piecing 3-4 inside linebackers together that can play at a winning level for you, four outside linebackers and we need six or seven D-linemen,” he said. “We’re getting to that point. If you look at our receivers, we do feel good about two-deep across the board, which is nice. We’re certainly deep at the running back position. We’re getting some depth at tight end. O-line, we feel good about six, seven, eight guys who can play winning football, which is nice to see, which we haven’t had in a while. So we’re getting depth. It comes in spots.”
Building the numbers on defense has proven to be more difficult, but Stoops is happy with Kentucky’s secondary and likes the way the linebackers have improved during the past two weeks. Youngsters Jordan Jones and Eli Brown have been battling for a starting spot at linebacker and Stoops said both players have “shown very good promise.”
“Both make a few mistakes but they’re playing really good football,” Stoops said. “He (Jones) actually got a little dinged up (in the scrimmage) with his shoulder, nothing major. He was out of some of the full contact stuff (Monday).”
While the returnees are expected to anchor the defense, Stoops is high on newcomers T.J. Carter (defensive end) and reigning Kentucky Mr. Football and linebacker Kash Daniel. The Kentucky coach expects both players to receive considerable playing time this season.
“We’re working on it (getting them into the rotation),” Stoops said. “I think T.J. Carter is a guy that will play, that we’ll need to bring along and play. Kash (Daniel), I think is a guy that we have to look at defensively.”
As for building depth he’s comfortable with, Stoops said he’s not satisfied.
“It’s hard,” he said. “I bet if you asked any SEC head coach if they had a solid two-deep across the board at every position, it would probably be pretty hard to come by. So we know we’re not going to ever play with 10 O-linemen in a game and so on. But I do feel like we’re getting where we need to be; when you’re piecing 3-4 inside linebackers together that can play at a winning level for you, four outside linebackers, and we need six or seven D-linemen. We’re getting to that point.”
Stoops said building the defense is similar to the growing pains he’s experienced on offense, especially at wide receiver during his first three seasons with the Wildcats.
“Since I walked in here, (receiver has) been a position we’ve been working every year, relentlessly, about building depth at receiver,” he said. “We finally feel like we have that. We have some players capable of making some big plays and we have some depth to help them out. If you get an injury, it’s not going to completely set you back. So we’re getting there.”
Game tracker: Southern Mississippi at Kentucky, 7:30 p.m., Sept. 3, Commonwealth Stadium. TV/Radio: ESPNU, 98.1 FM WBUL.
Keith Taylor is a senior sports writer for KyForward, where he primarily covers University of Kentucky sports. Reach him at keith.taylor@kyforward.com or @keithtaylor21 on Twitter