Well after sleeping on it, losing this game is still a horrible lost conimsidering how big they were up.

 

I guess the one positive is Barker did show a lot of potential. For the most part when he did pass, his passes were right on target except for the pick. I think he only got to throw 6 passes in the 2nd half, crazy! Obviously he has to also protect the ball better in the pocket when their is a rush by him too. However hopefully that is something that will get better with the more experience he gets.

 

So I think he showed the potential he has, and could end up having a very good career. However it may take a head coaching change to help show it more in terms of wins and losses.

Here's the thing about UK football. Do I think Stoops is the right guy? Heck no. But who are they going to bring in that is better? The problem is there are only so many good coaches to go around and why would you willingly come to a school where you are always playing second fiddle. I think UK is probably the 2nd worst job in the SEC behind Vandy and would also say it is probably in the bottom 7 or 8 coaching jobs in all of the Power 5 conferences.

The only position that drastically improved were the UK receivers. Zero drops last night. So I guess Lamar Thomas can coach. BTW, DJ Eliot cannot. Worse than a Mike Majors Defense.

Nope. You gotta be able to hit what you aim at.

 

Good point, friend.

How bad of DLinemen do you have to have that you can't get anyone better to take Elams place?

 

Matt Elam is the Domato Peko of UK

The sad thing is that. I know the old thing is that UK is a basketball school, blah, blah, blah. The reality is, UK fans would love to be good in football too. Unfortunately, it's been a 25-year root canal.

 

 

Are they really dying for a winner? They drew 57,000 for the season opener against a bowl team from last year. In order to get that many they had to give away or severely discount a bunch of tickets. Sounds more like apathy.

Are they really dying for a winner? They drew 57,000 for the season opener against a bowl team from last year. In order to get that many they had to give away or severely discount a bunch of tickets. Sounds more like apathy.

 

We will see what 0-2 Kentucky draws for that 3rd game.

Just finished watching the game.

 

Even though Kentucky's defense played well in the first half, the offense only had the ball 11:53. 3 of the scoring drives were, 2 plays in 40 seconds, 2 plays in 33 seconds, and 2 plays in 24 seconds. That left the defense out there a lot in the first half with little breaks for rest between relatively long USM possessions. The line started showing fatigue on the last 2 USM drives in the 1st half.

 

Southern Miss knew they had no depth on the defensive line and exploited that fact, especially in the second half. They wore the line completely out.

 

The best part of Eddie Gran's offense is that it can score quickly. The bad part of Eddie Gran's offense is that can score quickly. And when things go bad, as it did in the 2nd half, and you have no depth on the D-Line, the bad can snowball just as quickly.

 

IMO, calling for Stoops's head is not going to fix this. Maintaining the course and keeping the coaching staff intact for more that one season will. They've got talent and depth in the secondary, now they need to concentrate on the D-Line.

Everybody is blaming Elam and the defense but the qb had 3 turnovers the defense never got a break.

I made a Facebook status saying the same thing and I swear I never saw this post. :lol2:

 

Love it--For the record, I think its a tossup, only because this years' UK hoops' team is rumored to want to run a lot?

Just finished watching the game.

 

Even though Kentucky's defense played well in the first half, the offense only had the ball 11:53. 3 of the scoring drives were, 2 plays in 40 seconds, 2 plays in 33 seconds, and 2 plays in 24 seconds. That left the defense out there a lot in the first half with little breaks for rest between relatively long USM possessions. The line started showing fatigue on the last 2 USM drives in the 1st half.

 

Southern Miss knew they had no depth on the defensive line and exploited that fact, especially in the second half. They wore the line completely out.

 

The best part of Eddie Gran's offense is that it can score quickly. The bad part of Eddie Gran's offense is that can score quickly. And when things go bad, as it did in the 2nd half, and you have no depth on the D-Line, the bad can snowball just as quickly.

 

IMO, calling for Stoops's head is not going to fix this. Maintaining the course and keeping the coaching staff intact for more that one season will. They've got talent and depth in the secondary, now they need to concentrate on the D-Line.

 

 

I've waited a while to read and post in this thread, one reason is I didn't make it home from the game until after 2am last night, the other is because I wanted to sleep on it before I vented. But IMO, your spot on in your assessment Swampy.

 

I've been going to UK games for most of my life, however I got fed up during the Joker years and this was the first one I have attended in about 6 years. We kept a couple of season tickets for friends and extended family to use and dropped the rest during the Joker years. So we decided to get a group of the family to go to last nights game (8 of us) and when I think about the price of the six tickets, it makes last nights game even more depressing. I've seen a lot of UK football over the years and to be honest, this may be the most depressing loss I've ever been too. The LSU hail mary was a bad one as well, but no where near as depressing since LSU was ranked #1 at the time and UK wasn't given a chance.

 

But anyway, back to the game. While watching the first half, to be honest I was really impressed with the overall play of the team and absolutely amazed with Barker. But like you, I knew that the defense hadn't had much of a break due to the quick scores. Once SMU scored the touchdown at the end of the first half I checked some stats on my phone app. Barker's stats were amazing as were UK's offensive production. But one thing that stood out was time of possession. I don't remember exactly what it was at halftime, but the final time of possession for SMU for the game was just over 40 minutes, with UK just over 19 minutes. At halftime, with SMU gaining some momentum with the last touchdown I had a gut feeling it was all going to go downhill in the second half if SMU scored early and ate up some clock while doing so. It felt like SMU had the ball the entire 3rd quarter and UK's defense was gassed.

 

I'm not making excuses for the coaches, the defense or anything/anyone else. But over the years of watching UK football, there has been one constant that makes it easy for teams to exploit them. Lack of depth. I know the offense could have been ran differently in the first half to help keep the defense off the field and the turnovers in the second half didn't help any either. But it still comes back to lack of depth in the end. That's something that I don't know will ever change as it's hard to build quality depth when you aren't winning games.

I keep laughing at the folks blaming the defense that set up every score UK had....

 

UK TD drives after the UK D intercepted USM:

 

65 yards

49 yards

We all knew the front 7 was going to be thin and inexperienced this year so seeing them get man-handled was not a surprise.

 

What was a surprise was the DBs letting receivers run unguarded.

 

Late first half a WR caught a ball down the USM sideline unguarded.

Late first half TD catch was right down the middle with no defender.

2nd half TD to the TE in the corner on the UK side - unguarded.

 

Way too many breakdowns.

Time to get Stephen Johnson ready to start at QB!

I guess it's to bad for you that your opinion doesn't matter to people who evaluate players and talent for a living. Both were great high school qbs. One was a qb good enough to be a D1 qb and one was more suited for smaller college football. Both are great accomplishments, and immature to just to put down another because of basically all D1 college coaches not sharing your opinion.

 

 

3 turnovers lastnight proves he is not a very could qb.