Head Coach Mark Stoops, offensive coordinator Eddie Gran, defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot, quarterback Drew Barker and linebacker Courtney Love talked to the media following Kentucky’s first Saturday scrimmage and by all accounts both sides of the ball performed well with room for improvement on both sides.
“It was a good first scrimmage,” Stoops said. “As I have mentioned to you a time or two during camp, I feel like we are off to a good start. We are by no means – there are so many mistakes that we have to get cleaned up. But I do like where we are at and I feel like we are physically stronger, conditioning wise I like where we are at. We pushed them, we had some long drives and we taxed them and forced them to go 12-16 play drives. It was good to see us in fairly condition at this point in camp and that is a testament to what we did during the offseason and summer. We did some good things on both sides of ball. It is always a little bit blurry for me with so many snaps out there and so many situations until I can get in there and watch the tape. You always get aggravated when you get through so many plays and you get thin and they start moving the ball around a little bit and it puts a bad taste in your mouth. But I felt like early on in the scrimmage that both sides did some good things. Depth is going to continue to be an issue for us defensively. We have got to that experience, that is why it is so important to get out there and play the game to put them in that situation because we have some guys that have no played much in this system and we need to continue to get out there and get as many game-like situations as we can. We did get quite a few snaps today and hopefully we will learn a bunch from this.”
Stoops did have a bit of bad news on the injury front as he announced that sophomore safety Darius West will likely miss the 2016 season due to a leg injury. Stoops said the injury was sustained during practice Friday. The head coach also said that wide receiver Blake Bone was dealing with a “slight hamstring” injury and missed the last few days of practice, but was expected to be back on the field next week. Stoops also announced that running back Mikel Horton sustained an ankle injury during Saturday’s scrimmage.
Full comments from Stoops, Gran, Eliot, Barker and Love are linked above. The Wildcats will hit the fields again Monday after meetings all day tomorrow.
