At some point or another, every team is going to have to cope with injury throughout the course of a football season. Even the most fortunate teams have to deal with the bumps and bruises associated with the gridiron grind.Particularly for the unit projected to be the strength of this year’s team, the offensive line, the healthier that UK’s starters can stay, the better. With that said, the stray missed game, quarter or series is close to inevitable. The best thing a team can do, then, is prepare accordingly for those injuries by developing quality depth. With three starters along the offensive line sidelined with injury, developing that depth is exactly what UK is trying to do. Losing players even for the shortest time is never ideal, but it does come with a silver lining.”Three offensive linemen that are starters are out,” head coach Joker Phillips said. “We’ve got some young guys that are in there. Some might see that as a negative, but I see it as a positive. That’s a chance to paint the picture that this gives us an opportunity to develop some depth.”Junior left guard Stuart Hines, junior center Matt Smith and senior left tackle Chandler Burden were all held of UK’s first full-pad scrimmage of the fall. All are expected to make full recoveries for the start of the regular season, but there will almost certainly come a time where some of the players called upon to step up on Saturday will have to do the same in a game that actually counts.”Our starters will all be back,” Phillips said. “They don’t have injuries that should keep them out long, but the young guys need to take advantage of the opportunity.”Senior Jake Lanefski, junior Trevino Woods, sophomore Kevin Mitchell and redshirt freshman Teven Eatmon-Nared are among the group asked to fill the void. Phillips said they did some positive things, but mistakes were made and most were mental.”We expect those guys to understand the snap count,” Phillips said. “Don’t flinch. We had too much flinching up front on both sides of the ball. We’ve got to take advantage of opportunities and there are a lot of opportunities out there for young offensive linemen (to make) us to feel comfortable enough to put them in the game. They’re getting a lot of snaps and they have to make those snaps count.”Chemistry between a quarterback and his offensive line is absolutely essential. Backup offensive linemen often end up playing with backup quarterbacks in practice, not the starter. However, Lanefski, Woods, Mitchell and Eatmon-Nared have a chance to line up with starter Morgan Newton and learn how to play with him, which could pay dividends in the long run.In the short run, playing without three linemen as good as Hines, Smith and Burden is going to make life harder on a quarterback, especially against a defense as keen on attacking as Rick Minter’s unit.”He looked like he was in a hurry some,” offensive coordinator Randy Sanders said of Newton. “When you take three starters out, a lot of times that rush gets there a little faster and you have to rush a little bit more.”That kind of situation can also be excellent preparation for Newton, who will be the starter from opening day for the first time in his UK career. Games will come when Newton is under more pressure than he’s accustomed to, whether due to injuries along the offensive line or due to a particularly strong opposing rush. The way Newton coped on Saturday has to be viewed as a positive. Playing without 60% his offensive line and with his ability as a scrambler taken away due to strict rules against hitting quarterbacks in scrimmages, UK’s first team offense managed to put together “five or six” touchdown drives on an estimated 55 plays, output that the Wildcats would gladly take on any SEC Saturday. Newton, though, is still intently focused on what it will take to improve.”For what we had and what we have installed in our offense right now, we did a pretty good job,” Newton said. “There are some positives, but we definitely have a lot to work on.”