Kentucky coach Mark Stoops met with the Lexington media on Monday afternoon ahead of Saturday’s showdown between the Vols and Wildcats in Lexington.
It’s a pivotal game for Kentucky as the Wildcats are coming off their open date and two losses prior to that. Tennessee has won two straight games in the series and is looking for its third straight win in Lexington.
Stoops discussed a myriad of things about Tennessee including its tempo, defensive line and Joe Milton III. Here’s everything Stoops said about the Vols on Monday.
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On what makes Tennessee explosive
“You’ve seen a lot of it the last couple of years. Their tempo creates problems but they are very balanced. When you’re looking for balance, you’ve heard me talk about it a lot, as a defensive coach defending someone that’s— they’re about exactly 50/50 right now. 217 (rushing yards per game) to 220 (passing yards per game). That’s about as balanced as you can get and they have a very efficient offense that’s hard to defend. The way they spread you out, the tempo that they use, the schemes that they use. Very talented quarterback in Joe Milton with a ton of experience. He’s been around a long time, a senior, and I think they have dynamic running backs along with always having explosive receivers. Very good team.”
On what he’s learned about facing this offense, simulating it in practice the last two years
“I think we definitely try different ways to help and to simulate that. As you heard me say, and probably most, it’s almost impossible to simulate them in practice— that’s for sure. You can run two units at them— as far as two scout teams— you can practice against our offense that can be efficient by just playing good offense though it’s not the same offense. As far as us getting our cleats in the ground, getting calls, communicating, lined up, getting set— I think that was a piece of it a year ago where we’re (not) playing certain downs very well, certain plays very well and the tempo stresses some kids mentally and you just can’t have that. You can’t have any mental breakdowns. That’s for sure. They put enough stress on you and make enough tough one-on-one catches that you can’t have your own mental breakdowns.”
On the biggest difference in Tennessee’s offense from this year to last
“I think it’s very similar in a lot of ways. This past week you saw Joe really throwing some good deep passes and some very accurate (passes) and maybe one drop in a critical moment and they had some nice plays. They’re the same in that they can still really be explosive at any moment.”
On Tennessee’s defensive line
“They’ve just been very disruptive. They’re very good as a unit. I want to say they’re averaging 310 yards per game. They’ve been very disruptive up front getting a bunch of sacks. They’re playing strong across the board.”
On if he addresses Tennessee’s explosiveness with his players
“Our players watch football, so I think they’ve seen them play for the last couple years. They watch it on TV and they can see it in real time, the actual tempo. Sometimes on film some things are slowed down but we, obviously, watch TV copies too so we can see the actual game speed. I think our players understand with playing tempo teams (this) is certainly one that’s an elite tempo team. I don’t think it goes any faster.”
On the importance of the pass rush against a team that takes a lot of vertical shots
“Well, this team also gets the ball out very, very quick at times. There’s times when there’s zero chance to get there because there’s literally a ball of as fast as you can get it out. Kind of like a good shortstop there. So there are times when it’s coming out extremely fast and then there’s times when they do take their shots and it’s drop back and so we have to be dialed up and relentless in their pursuit. The thing is with Joe, he can pull it down, they can have designed quarterback runs, they can have designed quarterback draws and he does a nice job of buying time as well to scramble for yards or scramble to buy time and get the ball down the field. Anytime you’re playing a guy like that it puts a lot of stress on the defensive line. I think we’re going to need to play a lot of guys and they’re going to need to play very fast. They also have to be in great shape. We worked really hard last week with tempo because there’s times when you can not come out of the game. When they’re in their series there is zero substitution until there’s a stoppage.”
On getting the secondary ready for the duality of Joe Milton
“A couple things, the deep shots itself he has a very strong arm. That’s well documented. He can get the ball down the field as good as anybody that we will see. Just judging and playing the ball on deep shots is one thing and then to the first part of your question is plastering and playing off schedule is important to reaffirm that, practice that and plaster it into our guys with scramble drills.”
