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| Aug. 21, 2008 LEXINGTON, Ky. – Special teams were the focus of the Kentucky football practice Thursday morning at the Nutter Training Center. “We did some scrimmaging in the kicking game today and got some good work in,” Coach Rich Brooks said. “More importantly, we got some good things on tape to teach from as we move forward. This Saturday we can concentrate a little more on some situational things and not as much on the kicking game in the scrimmage.” Brooks also discussed additional items related to special teams: On improving blocking in special teams… “That’s why we did what we did today. We scrimmaged it and tried to get looks at a few different people doing it more than once, twice or three times and being able to teach from it in a full-speed tackle situation.” On the possibility of changes to help improve special teams blocking… “There will be some new people on there from a year ago. Part of what we did today is try to identify somebody who might be able to move up that food chain a little bit.” On using offensive and defensive starters in special teams… “LSU won the national championship last year and they had starters on every special team. We will play the people that we need to play to be good on special teams and that includes starters.” On who will be returning kickoffs … “Dicky (Lyons Jr.) is doing some kickoff returns, also Alfonso (Smith), Eric Adeyemi, Tony Dixon, Winston Guy, and others.” On what you look for in a kickoff return man… “Kickoff return and punt return are totally two different animals. It’s a lot harder to catch a punt when there is a guy coming 100 miles per hour at you and is four yards away from you when you catch it. You have to not only have courage, but you have to have great anticipation and vision as a punt returner, because we usually say you have to avoid one guy and that’s usually very quickly before you can get into any type of return. On kickoff return, they are usually a lot farther away from you and we need them to just be able to hit the thing full speed. When you look at 11 or 10 guys coming at you as fast as they can run and then you have to run into that wall as fast as you can run, that is a different kind of courage than covering punts.” Offense Better in Second Scrimmage LEXINGTON, Ky. – A week after being kept out of the end zone by the defense in the first major scrimmage, the Kentucky offense showed improvement during a 90-minute scrimmage in sweltering conditions Saturday afternoon at Commonwealth Stadium. The format was first-team offense and defense going against their second-team counterparts. The scrimmage was situational, with the offense getting the ball in different locations on the field and also some two-minute drill work. “I thought there were a lot of good things,” Coach Rich Brooks said. “We got a lot of situations covered. We scored touchdowns. We found the end zone and a lot of our young receivers stood up and made some catches. I thought Hartline and Cobb (quarterbacks Mike Hartline and Randall Cobb) handled the offense well and made some plays. “We had much better protection today (by the offensive line). We had a couple of breakdowns that would have been sacks, as we did not allow the quarterbacks to be hit today. There were some good runs made and some holes. There was some push, moving the pile a little bit. It looked more like I thought it was going to look today than it did last week.” Brooks indicated that some of the up-and-down performance by offensive line has been a result of good play by the Wildcat defensive line, particularly at the tackle positions. “I feel like (Corey) Peters, (Myron) Pryor and (Ricky) Lumpkin are loads inside, and we have some other young guys doing some decent things, but those three guys are the real deal inside,” Brooks said. “They’re going to give everybody a test. Certainly they’ve given us a test in fall camp. “It’s a little scary, obviously, when you go against yourself. You never know who’s doing something good and who’s doing something not so good because you’re going against yourself. There were a lot of good individual plays today. We looked like we were not quite as quick as we need to be, a little beat-up, tired, dead-legged. We have a light practice tomorrow and a day off Monday. We start our normal morning practices on Tuesday. We need to freshen up and get some bounce back in our step now.” Brooks said that offensive guard Stuart Hines, safety Marcus McClinton, wide receiver E.J. Fields, offensive tackle James Alexander and quarterback Will Fidler did not participate in today’s scrimmage because of injuries. Wide receiver DeMoreo Ford also did not participate, as he was attending his brother’s funeral. |
| Special Focus on Special Teams Kentucky Football Notebook |
