Stoops 'Pleased' with Cats' Scrimmage on Saturday

The Kentucky football team held a closed scrimmage on Saturday and the Cats were able to work on many game-like situations during the session. UK head coach Mark Stoops came away happy with how his team performed in the scrimmage.

“Good scrimmage today. Very pleased with the progress we’ve made this week,” Stoops said. “I feel like the latter part of this week and the scrimmage, we’ve really picked it up, have become a sharper football team. Not as many mistakes. It was good to get out, put the ball down and get a bunch of reps out there and have a good physical day today.”

Participating in a scrimmage allowed the Cats to work on specific occurrences, something that Stoops thought the team handled well.

“We got a lot of situational work done today, which was really good,” he said. “We got some goal line, we got a lot of third downs, we had some third and fourth and shorts, two minute drill. Just better. Definite improvement and we all know that’s what we need to do. Just keep improving, put our head down and just get better each and every day.”

Stoops was impressed with how his team handled the day from beginning to end.

“When we come out here on this Saturday, we need to be as close to game-like situation as we can here,” Stoops said. “And I was pleased with the way the whole team handled that. The way they were up and ready and attentive in meetings this morning, took it to the field and played relatively clean.”

When asked what he was most impressed with, Stoops cited the offense.

“Get the ball in the end zone. Points,” he said. “The bottom line is we scored some points and that’s something we know we need to improve.”

Stoops liked the way both of the Cats’ top two quarterbacks handled Saturday’s scrimmage.

“I think both quarterbacks played good,” he said. “We played three but Zach (Calzada) and Cutter (Boley) got the bulk of the reps. They both played very good. They took care of the football. Conversion on some critical third downs was an improvement.”

As always, Stoops wants the Cats to be able to run the ball, and the team was able to do that on Saturday.

“We need to improve the offensive line and we need to run,” Stoops said. “So, I think I saw some of that today. It helped us mix things up a little bit.”

Stoops said that he didn’t want to have too much pounding on running backs Dante Dowdell and Seth McGowan, which allowed the staff to see some other backs in action. One, in particular, stood out.

“(Dowdell and McGowan) didn’t get a lot today. And those two have played a lot and they’re going to get quite a few reps, so their bodies are going to take a beating as you go through the year,” Stoops said. “We needed to see some other guys and that was good to see. (Jason Patterson) showed up today and I thought he made some people miss. He’s a tough runner, his vision was good and that was good to see.”

Overall, the first scrimmage of fall camp was a success for the Cats, who continue to improve as fall camp moves forward.