Kentucky Offense Still Searching for Balance
The Kentucky offense opened Saturday’s game at South Carolina with an impressive scoring drive to take an early lead. However, the Cats were unable to match that success the rest of the game.
Following Tuesday’s practice, offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan discussed what he saw on the South Carolina game film.
“I think a positive, starting fast. We had an opportunity to put the second touchdown in there,” Hamdan said. “What did we not do well? Obviously, a lot of things. The third down turnovers, the interception we had on the glanced ball, we really didn’t recover from that.”
Redshirt freshman Cutter Boley got his first Southeastern Conference start on the road on Saturday. Hamdan hopes that Boley can build on that performance.
“He’s got to take the positives and learn from the negatives,” Hamdan said. “We talked a couple of nights ago and I told him it wasn’t perfect but I thought he competed, he showed toughness. I don’t think he’s scared at all and that’s what I’ve learned in two years here. You better be confident at that position.”
Moving forward, Hamdan and the UK staff are looking to find the proper mix on offense that will allow the team to score more points.
“We’ve worked to not be as one-dimensional and that’s continuing to be the focus,” Hamdan said. “We want to run the ball but we’ve got to be balanced, we’ve got to create some things on the outside, score points. And frankly, we can’t be in passing situations and expect to be the drop back team. We’ve got to get the formula of what’s going to give us the best chance to win this game this week. We’ve got to throw and catch better, that’s pretty obvious.”
Part of that mix is determining when to take more chances and when to be conservative. It’s an ongoing process.
“We’ve got to play a different way to win football games,” Hamdan said. “We’ve got to put ourselves in position to take risks when we need to, take risks and be smart when we need to and it’s figuring out that balance.”
Hamdan has seen plenty from his unit that gives him confidence in them moving forward.
“I think we’ve improved at the offensive line position, as long as we avoid obvious passing situations,” Hamdan said. “From a run game standpoint, I think we can be a physical, downhill running attack. We’ve got to find ways to just find easy, cheap yards in the pass game. That’s what we’re looking to do, get the ball out of his hands and really pick our spots to try to throw downfield.”
Finding the right mix and having balance are goals for the UK offense moving forward, starting with a game at Georgia on Saturday.
