Stoops, White Hope UK Defense Takes Another Step Forward in 2024

Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops held his annual media day press conference on Friday at Kroger Field. While questions were wide-ranging, UK’s experienced defense was one of the topics of the day.

The Cats return 10 starters on defense and have what figures to be one of the most experienced units in the Southeastern Conference. While that experience is one thing, Stoops hopes to see his team improve on that side of the ball this season. What are the areas where that improvement can occur?

“There’s a number of areas,” Stoops said. ”We want to continue to get off the field. We did a decent job at times, but we have to get better at third down and executing and get some more three and outs, get off the field. I’d like to see the offense have more possession more plays. We’ve talked about that with the tempo and the offense, but that goes hand‑in‑hand. The defense needs to play well and get off the field. When we have opportunities get off the field we have to do that.”

Defensive coordinator Brad White echoed the sentiments of his head coach when he was asked where his unit could improve.

“When you look back and you self‑scout yourself, look at what you need to do better obviously, third‑down defense and specifically, with the backend of the season, third and long situations, especially extra-long, was an area that, historically, if you look we have been really good, and we were not,” White said. ”Not anywhere close to the standard that we need to be at and it cost us. When you give up third‑downs, you extend drives and extended drives leads to points, it leads to less opportunities for the offense. So obviously, that is going to be a primary focus. Again, the year before ’22, was, sort of, our best year ever in third‑down defense, and there is a correlation to how well we played as a defense. We need to get back there.”

Another way the Cats can get better in 2024 is to create negative plays for the opposition.

“I think we were disruptive last year. I liked that,” Stoops said. ”I liked the fact that we created negative yardage plays we had more sacks, we are getting some pressure, but we want to continue to build on that. You want to continue to be able to when you want to rush forward and get great pressure. You know, some of the best defenses we’ve had here it was a predictable pass, you know, rushing forward and getting coverage and mixing up the coverage and getting good pressure.”

The secondary is an area where the Cats return several key players. Stoops looks for that group to also take the next step forward.

“Obviously, the corner position getting sticky being able to place a man,” Stoops said. ”There were sometimes that we played man last year, got beat, believe me we mix it all up. And there were sometimes that we had to play tight. Get sticky. We had to get coverage. We have to get some one‑on‑one matchups.”

The Cats’ experience on defense will be beneficial as the 2024 campaign begins. However, both Stoops and White are looking for that experienced unit to be better this season.