Stoops Pleased with First Week of Fall Camp

Kentucky football head coach Mark Stoops spoke to the media after Saturday’s Fan Day. The UK head man is pleased with how his team has handled the first week of practice.

“You guys saw two practices (media day and today). I thought we made some strides today, offensively,” Stoops said. “Better attention to detail. It’s still early, but good first week.”

Stoops believes that the team’s ability to be more active over the summer is paying off now that fall camp has begun.

“With the opportunities that we’ve done in the summer, we’ve taken good advantage of that,” Stoops said. “The guys have worked really hard, coaches have put in a lot of time. So we’re further along.”

Another contributing factor is the experience that Kentucky has on the roster this season.

“Yeah, that’s a big piece of it. These guys have played a lot of ball,” Stoops said. “As I mentioned, they’ve worked really hard this summer. So, I feel like, on both sides of the ball and special teams, we’re further along.”

The offensive improvement must start with the offensive line. Stoops knows that the guys up front will be crucial to UK’s success this season.

“We have to be, I think you know that. We have to be physical,” Stoops said. “We have to be able to run the football. I think we’re making big improvement. I mentioned the offensive line, it starts there. I think we’re very big and stronger. We’re working on that depth and the backs are really good players.”

Another portion of the Cats’ plan for the season is being smart both on and off the field and handling critical situations.

“Football IQ is so important for us and we have to be able to keep it forward or stay ahead of it,” Stoops said.  “And that’s something that we’re also doing this camp. We’re spending extra time at night just working on two-minute (situations), third down, specialty blitzes, you name it.”

On defense, Stoops has been pleased with the secondary through summer and one week of fall camp.

“I don’t want to get the cart in front of the horse there, but I feel like the secondary can be really good,” Stoops said. “I think we’ve got some experience. You can see the length that we have out there. We need to keep (them) healthy and develop some depth.”

There’s still plenty of camp to go, but Stoops likes where his team is at this point.