Kentucky Offense Working on Finishing Drives
Things are not always as they appear. Such was the case during the Kentucky football team’s open practice on Saturday.
Those in attendance saw an offense that seemingly struggled at times. Even offensive coordinator Liam Coen left the field not feeling great about how his offense had performed.
“I thought, you walked off the field and it wasn’t like we got our butts handed to us,” Coen said. “That wasn’t the feeling that I felt. I felt a little deflated feeling from the day.”
Coen though the Cats’ offense did some good things on Saturday.
“I felt like we moved (the ball), moved it, we just didn’t capitalize on drives,” he said. “The first drive of the scrimmage, we go down, bang, bang, bang in four plays and then we get down in the low red area and they stuck it to us a little bit. We didn’t finish that drive in the end zone.”
Getting the entire offense on the same page is something that the Cats will be working on as spring practice begins to wind down.
“You just felt like it was two steps forward, one step back (on Saturday),” Coen said. “We’d have a couple of good plays, then we’d go minus-three. There was just too many opportunities that, if you go back and look at the film, there’s too many times that all 11 aren’t truly doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. It’s eight or nine guys, then there’s those two or three that might make a mistake, well that’s really important.”
Offensive line coach Zach Yenser echoed Coen’s thoughts about Saturday’s scrimmage.
“Walking off the field on Saturday, with the O-line, we all felt it was just like ‘dang’. And then after watching it with Liam and everything and a couple of the RPO runs that we don’t hand off, and on the RPO we had some hits, I felt better about it,” Yenser said. “It wasn’t like we weren’t physical. I felt like we did a pretty good job. I felt better after we watched the film.”
Coen also admitted that some of the blame for Saturday’s miscues should go to him as well.
“Then there were some bad calls, too,” Coen said. “It’s not all on them, it’s on me too, in terms of putting them in a great position on some third downs.”
It was a case of taking the good with the bad on Saturday for Coen.
“It was good to see us move the football,” he said. “It was deflating to see us not finish.”
The Cats have one more week of spring practice to continue to get everyone on the same page. And while Saturday’s scrimmage may not have looked great in person, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed when the offense left the playing field on Saturday,
