Cats Learning from Miscues in Fall Camp

Kentucky had its first scrimmage of the fall on Saturday inside Kroger Field. On Tuesday, defensive coordinator Brad White and offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan met the media for the first time since that scrimmage.

White said that his unit needs to work on a few fundamental things.

“We learned that we need to tackle better,” White said. “You always know after a long layoff, tackling is going to be a little bit rough and it was, especially in the first drive.”

Yes, there were mistakes on Saturday, but White hopes that those can turn into learning experiences for the Cats.

“There were some good, humbling experiences there,” White said. “We need that. You need to get humbled. So hopefully, they can respond.”

One thing the UK defensive coordinator is still working on is depth at linebacker and in the secondary. White has seen those groups show flashes but not consistently at this point.

“I think it’s sort of day by day, play by play,” White said. “Sometimes, it looks good and you feel good and then there’s some other plays, you’re like ‘wow’. There’s some younger guys back there and they’re going to have to learn through those mistakes. You never know exactly what you have until game day hits.”

Like White, Hamdan saw things that need to be cleaned up during the scrimmage.

“Progress to be made,” Hamdan said. “The number one thing is, any time you’re in a practice setting, a lot of times you’re scripting plays. The two things that stand out are, number one, the first time from an operational standpoint. We had the 40-second clock out there. The coach comment is shutting off at 15 (seconds). All those different things, then getting lined up, dealing with penalties and certainly from a conditioning standpoint. We’re in a controlled environment in practice with six to eight to 10 to 12 play drives. So those two things were certainly good things for our players to feel.”

As head coach Mark Stoops mentioned on Saturday following the scrimmage, the Cats were able to work on a number of game-like scenarios. Hamdan knows that this has been a points of emphasis in the offseason.

“Well, we certainly addressed some things a lot,” Hamdan said. “Some of it was just beating ourselves, things of whether it was cadence related, schematically. I know the biggest thing is how can we have less concepts and do more over and over again so guys feel extremely comfortable. You take one run play, you take three or four different fronts and that one run play can be used a lot.”

Hamdan also hopes to keep things simpler for the Cats this season.

“Honing into that scheme in year two, trying to simplify it, making it about the fundamentals and execution,” he said.

There are still improvements to be made in fall camp for the Cats, but there’s also time to get that done before the regular season opener on Aug. 30.