Kentucky football can take the next step by starting to extend its leads

As Mark Stoops enters his sixth season as a head coach, the former Iowa defensive back currently owns an overall record of 26-36 with a 12-28 mark in SEC play. The former defensive coordinator at Arizona and Florida State will be 51 years old at the beginning of the 2018 season as he’s pulling in over $3 million dollars per year.

After a year zero where he inherited a mess of a program, Stoops has proven to be a capable program builder as UK has slowly improved on their record and has never taken a step back even if they stayed even for a couple seasons in a row.

After flirting with an Air Raid scheme that leaned on tempo, UK has appeared to have found its offensive identity under play-caller Eddie Gran. Gran runs a no huddle system but tends to run very slow as he calls plays in from the sideline. After having an electric passing game at Cincinnati, Gran’s offenses in Lexington have leaned on the ground thanks to UK’s personnel.

The success that Vince Marrow and UK has had on the recruiting trail has really paid off on the offensive line as well as running back and tight end. UK is on an incredible run of finding solid interior offensive linemen, has a potential All-American at running back and tight end, as well as what appears to be solid potential at each spot. It’s easy to see why this ground game has exploded.

On defense, things have moved slower as Stoops has had to deal with a lot of staff changes as Matt House enters his third year on staff and his second season as the full-time defensive coordinator. In the last two years, the most recent hires on the defensive staff have all been guys who are known more as tacticians than recruiters. With eight seniors expected to start on defense, it’s now or never for this unit.

So UK enters 2018 with a tough schedule but one that presents plenty of opportunities. With a roster filled with plenty of talent and experience, it will be vital for this program to take the next step. To do that, UK must start extending leads and pulling away from opponents. Finding that huge statement win in front of the home crowd would be a solid start.

Production in Close Games

After going just 1-4 in one-possession games in his first two seasons, UK has made some significant strides starting in 2015 as the Wildcats are on a 12-7 run in the last three seasons. This number even improved under Gran as the Cats are 8-4 in the last two seasons.

This jump in production should tell you two things.

The first is that UK has slowly improved the product on the field. The games that were blowouts in the first two years are now becoming contests that are being decided in the last few minutes of the fourth quarter. That’s a good sign.

What isn’t a good sign is that more than half of UK’s games in year five under Stoops ended in a one-possession differential. That means UK has not been able to distance itself from competition and that must begin to change.

Foot on the Gas

In 2016, UK found itself with a huge fourth quarter lead over Mizzou by 28 points. When the clock finally ran out, that lead had shrunk to just two scores. They couldn’t pull away from a Vanderbilt squad that didn’t score an offensive touchdown. UK had the ball inside the 10 with a double-digit lead with under 10 minutes left at home against Mississippi State. They would need a crazy last second drive and field goal to pull off a crazy win. Against Georgia, UK held a 21-16 lead with just under five minutes left in the third quarter. On a deep post, Stephen Johnson threw a perfect ball to Jeff Badet that hit off the shoulder pad and turned into an interception. UK would go on to lose by three.

In 2017, UK put together a spectacular defensive performance in the road opener against Southern Miss but an anemic rushing attack prevent UK from winning comfortably. A few weeks later, UK held a 27-14 lead over Florida in the third quarter. The Wildcats would go on to lose by one. In the next month, four turnovers prevented UK from blowing out Tennessee in a three-point win. Not being able to force any turnovers was the biggest reason UK was upset by Ole Miss at home and that loss prevented the Wildcats from their first winning record in SEC play since 1977.

Kentucky must now find a way to lay down the hammer against opponents. Whether it is finding big plays on offense or forcing more turnovers on defense, UK must get more aggressive when trying to take out opponents. Being in so many close games has a way of wearing down a team and in 2017 UK consistently found itself in contests that were not determined until deep in the fourth quarter. You could make a case that this is why the defense just fell apart in the last month of the season as the starters had to log a ton of snaps.

Against their Peers

When you look at the 13-11 record that Mark Stoops has in one-possession games it ranks pretty well with his peers. In these situations over the last five seasons, Stoops has a higher winning percentage than Butch Jones, Derek Mason, Dan Mullen, and Bobby Petrino. As expected star coaches Jimbo Fisher (16-6), Nick Saban (11-4), and Kirby Smart (7-4) have excelled in these spots.

The really only outlier in the SEC, now that Jim McElwain is out, has been Will Muschamp. After going 8-13 in one-possession games in four years as the head coach at Florida, the new ball coach in Columbia has gone 11-3 in one-possession games over two seasons. That’s really incredible and explains a big reason why the Gamecocks were able able to breakthrough and win nine games even when their numbers were not impressive.

In close games it can be pretty random and a lot of times it depends how your quarterback plays in clutch situations and how good your kicker is. In the last two seasons, Stephen Johnson was responsible for five game-winning fourth quarter drives. In the kicking department, Austin MacGinnis has a case to be made as the program’s best kicker of all-time and he nailed game-winning field goals against Mississippi State and Louisville.

Those two are now gone and even though Kentucky has a ton of experience back, we are not sure how they will be able to perform when the game gets into crunch time. Will the quarterback be able to make plays and will they have a dependable kicker to lean on? That’s something we will have to wait and find out.

The time is now for a Stoops unit to be in the top 50 of national defensive rankings as they need to stop the run and force turnovers that should be caused by an excellent pass rush. On offense, the efficiency is provided by Benny Snell and now UK must find a way to complement it with an ability to produce explosive plays.

Find solutions there and it could be an exciting fall at the artist formerly known as Commonwealth Stadium.