White Looking for Defensive Improvement Against South Carolina

The Kentucky defense held Southern Miss scoreless in UK’s 31-0 season-opening win on Saturday. While the shutout is nice, Kentucky defensive coordinator found plenty of things that his unit still needs to improve on before Saturday’s contest against South Carolina.

“You think about it all,” White said. “As coaches, we think about the ones that we really need to improve on, the missed opportunities.”

One thing that White really liked was, when the Golden Eagles appeared to be ready to put points on the board, the UK defense stepped up with an interception by JQ Hardaway.

“We talked about, get off the field by any means necessary,” White said. “Yeah, we gave up three straight first downs. We get another chance at a third down. We talk about rise up in the red zone, third down, red zone and turnovers. And we get all three on one play – third down, turnover in the red zone. And I think that really sparked the guys. But I’m also glad they got to feel that stress, they needed to feel that stress.”

But White knows that his unit needs to look at what they can improve upon this week because last week is history.

“We’ve got to win the week. Last week was last week,” White said. “Nice job by rising up there in the red zone when we had an opportunity to do it, but that’s last week. I hope our guys went in and watched the game with the mentality of let’s look at the things not that we did well, but all the things we did poor, and there’s plenty on film that we need to get cleaned up. They have attacked this week thus far. We’ve still got a couple of days left to finish off the prep and put the finishing touches on it.”

White knows that the level of competition will increase dramatically this week in the Southeastern Conference opener against the Gamecocks.

“We’ve got a really good football team coming in here this week,” White said. “So hopefully we’re dialed in and ready to go.”

White knows the Gamecocks’ offensive coordinator, Dowell Loggains, and he knows that his Cats need to be better this week.

“First of all, I know they’re really well-coached,” White said. “I know Dowell, he’s a friend of mine. He does a really great job calling games, setting up games. He’s going to have those guys ready to play. A really talented quarterback (LaNorris Sellers). Yes, one that may have had some first-game jitters, but you anticipate him coming in ready to light it up. He’s got all the tools. He’s got the arm strength, he’s got the legs. Obviously, Rocket Sanders in the backfield is a proven commodity. They’ve got weapons on the outside edge, tight ends are very good players. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Despite the week one shutout, White is hoping that his unit learns from its mistakes against Southern Miss and shows improvement against South Carolina.