Here's the thing

[Todd4State]

1. Our team goes as our offense goes. If we play well and do what we typically do we're fine. There are only two ways that this offense gets stopped- we either get beat on the LOS by better talent which stops any offense or we shoot ourselves in the foot. Both happened tonight. Losing Sharp hurt a lot. And I don't know why they didn't move Dollar Bill to RT and Kam Jones to LG when Sharp went down. Will didn't play very well either. He's better than he has been but sometimes he is just inconsistent and timid.

2. I've seen people blame the defense but the reality here is they're not elite. They're not bad either. But they're not good enough to hold a team down under 17 points. I'm OK with them allowing 24 a game. Tonight we allowed 27. Still underperforming but not completely egrigious. I'd like to see us address this in the offseason if possible through the portal because we have good players but outside of Wheat and Forbes none of them are game changers like when we had Simmons, Sweat, and Abrams.

3. I don't know why we have our absolute worst games in Lexington. It's a bit bizarre. I'm sure we'll probably blow them out next year. However, I'm really pissed off that we keep having potentially special seasons spoiled by playing like shit there. It's more on us than them. It seems to me like Kentucky wants to beat us worse than we want to beat them. I'm not sure why that is. But they play a lot harder against us than most other teams.

4. As Leach says- we have to do our job. Our players didn't do that tonight at all.

5. I've noticed that when we see a defense that people don't normally run against us Will gets confused. Then we see it on film and fix it. I think some of that happened tonight too. Usually teams would just drop 8 and rush three as we all know. However, we started to dissect that and it didn't stop us at all. And we even started to just hand it off and get tons of yards out of it. Now teams are having to respect that and we're going to see more of what Kentucky did tonight with guys rushing four and blitzing DB's. I'm betting we figure that out too. But it needs to get to a point where Will truly has seen everything and can identify what to do out of it. Tonight showed me that while he is close to doing that he's not quite there yet to where he has completely mastered the offense.

[Catfish]

Good post.

[SteelCurtain74]

It's easy to defend our offense when we decide to be a one dimensional offense. We attempted two, count them two, runs in the second half. I'm not sure why we gave up on trying to run the ball so easily but this is the result we will get the rest of the year if it doesn't change.

[dawgday166]

They play pretty dirty up there IMO and I don't usually say stuff like that. They were holding pretty flagrantly on almost every play. I rewound, slowed it down, and replayed plays to see where the huge holes were coming from. One time their RB ran right by one of our DL who had his head in the Olineman's belly. When I rewound it the Olineman had reached around and grabbed the back of his head and pulled it down. That kinda stuff was going on all night long. Our D players couldn't disengage from their blockers.

Same kinda stuff happened in 2018. We came in as favorites, they played that way, and got into our heads. Same thing happened tonight too, at least when we were on D it did.

That's also why I think we had so many PFs and whatnot. They doing all that cheap shit, get us pissed, and when we react we get the call against us.

Not trying to make excuses cause we gotta be tough enough to fight thru it anyway and keep our composure.

[Commercecomet24]

They play pretty dirty up there IMO and I don't usually say stuff like that. They were holding pretty flagrantly on almost every play. I rewound, slowed it down, and replayed plays to see where the huge holes were coming from. One time their RB ran right by one of our DL who had his head in the Olineman's belly. When I rewound it the Olineman had reached around and grabbed the back of his head and pulled it down. That kinda stuff was going on all night long. Our D players couldn't disengage from their blockers.

Same kinda stuff happened in 2018. We came in as favorites, they played that way, and got into our heads. Same thing happened tonight too, at least when we were on D it did.

That's also why I think we had so many PFs and whatnot. They doing all that cheap shit, get us pissed, and when we react we get the call against us.

Not trying to make excuses cause we gotta be tough enough to fight thru it anyway and keep our composure.

We didn't play well at all, that's on us. That being said I agree with what you said. They held all night and when officials let it go that much eventually players get frustrated and you see some of that back and forth stuff. They held worse than bama does but at some point you have to make plays and we didnt. To many mistakes tonight. We pissed the bed

[Todd4State]

It's easy to defend our offense when we decide to be a one dimensional offense. We attempted two, count them two, runs in the second half. I'm not sure why we gave up on trying to run the ball so easily but this is the result we will get the rest of the year if it doesn't change.

All about box count.

There was a misconception about Leach "changing his philosophy" the past few weeks. That was never true. He will run it if it is there. If it isn't he is throwing it. Which was why it was odd to see us try to run on fourth and short against LSU when they loaded up the box. Also, when the running backs aren't running well Leach/Will is not going to rely on them as much.

[Dawgology]

The offense goes as the QB goes. We need a better QB. It?s year three. If he cant figure out a defense and see open receivers or hand the ball off at the right time at this point he never will.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Will knows he is not going to lose his job to anyone on this roster. That being said we didnt try to establish the run early tonight as we had in past games.

[dawgday166]

We didn't play well at all, that's on us. That being said I agree with what you said. They held all night and when officials let it go that much eventually players get frustrated and you see some of that back and forth stuff. They held worse than bama does but at some point you have to make plays and we didnt. To many mistakes tonight. We pissed the bed

We are on a par with KY and gotta overcome it. Bama we ain't on a par with so when they do it, we can't really overcome that. And they don't need to do it as much as KY was doing it tonight.

I will add that we didn't set the edge well at all tonight at times. And our secondary played very poorly although a couple of those holding penalties were ticky-tac penalties. But getting burnt deep like we did, that's another story.

[Todd4State]

The offense goes as the QB goes. We need a better QB. It?s year three. If he cant figure out a defense and see open receivers or hand the ball off at the right time at this point he never will.

But the thing is- he has shown he can do that. Texas A&M's defense is statistically similar to Kentucky's. We scored 42 on them. It's there. I think it's a maturity issue mostly because with him specifically it's like we have some success and then he starts thinking about other things- who knows what- and tries to do too much and doesn't trust himself or the system. And then he just checks everything down when he does that in part because he is indecisive when that happens.

I guarantee you when they watch film there will be a ton of guys open that Will didn't get the ball to downfield.

But furthermore I think it's a team thing. We never seem to be able to quite put it all together enough to have that special season where we win 9-10 games.

[Todd4State]

We are on a par with KY and gotta overcome it. Bama we ain't on a par with so when they do it, we can't really overcome that. And they don't need to do it as much as KY was doing it tonight.

I will add that we didn't set the edge well at all tonight at times. And our secondary played very poorly although a couple of those holding penalties were ticky-tac penalties. But getting burnt deep like we did, that's another story.

Exactly. That's why we have to actually have the foresight to hit the portal hard this offseason. Our EDGE players are average at best. If we can shore that up then the defense will improve a lot.

[dawgday166]

All about box count.

There was a misconception about Leach "changing his philosophy" the past few weeks. That was never true. He will run it if it is there. If it isn't he is throwing it. Which was why it was odd to see us try to run on fourth and short against LSU when they loaded up the box. Also, when the running backs aren't running well Leach/Will is not going to rely on them as much.

This is what I scratch my head about at times when folks insist we run the ball at least a 30% or so of the time. We can't stay spread out (like we are) and forcefully run on an overloaded box (unless you hold like KY was tonight). This offense is about taking what the defense gives you. If that's 9 passes to 1 run ... so be it. There were at least a couple of times tonight when Will should've passed instead of handing off. Will made some misreads tonight and KY was keeping him off balance in that regard IMO.

When LSU was one dimensional with Leonard Fournette, he ran against everyone cause they had the talented blockers in the box with the defenders. But ... when they played Bama ... he didn't go anywhere. They were a one-dimensional running team.

[Goldendawg]

1. Our team goes as our offense goes. If we play well and do what we typically do we're fine. There are only two ways that this offense gets stopped- we either get beat on the LOS by better talent which stops any offense or we shoot ourselves in the foot. Both happened tonight. Losing Sharp hurt a lot. And I don't know why they didn't move Dollar Bill to RT and Kam Jones to LG when Sharp went down. Will didn't play very well either. He's better than he has been but sometimes he is just inconsistent and timid.

2. I've seen people blame the defense but the reality here is they're not elite. They're not bad either. But they're not good enough to hold a team down under 17 points. I'm OK with them allowing 24 a game. Tonight we allowed 27. Still underperforming but not completely egrigious. I'd like to see us address this in the offseason if possible through the portal because we have good players but outside of Wheat and Forbes none of them are game changers like when we had Simmons, Sweat, and Abrams.

3. I don't know why we have our absolute worst games in Lexington. It's a bit bizarre. I'm sure we'll probably blow them out next year. However, I'm really pissed off that we keep having potentially special seasons spoiled by playing like shit there. It's more on us than them. It seems to me like Kentucky wants to beat us worse than we want to beat them. I'm not sure why that is. But they play a lot harder against us than most other teams.

4. As Leach says- we have to do our job. Our players didn't do that tonight at all.

5. I've noticed that when we see a defense that people don't normally run against us Will gets confused. Then we see it on film and fix it. I think some of that happened tonight too. Usually teams would just drop 8 and rush three as we all know. However, we started to dissect that and it didn't stop us at all. And we even started to just hand it off and get tons of yards out of it. Now teams are having to respect that and we're going to see more of what Kentucky did tonight with guys rushing four and blitzing DB's. I'm betting we figure that out too. But it needs to get to a point where Will truly has seen everything and can identify what to do out of it. Tonight showed me that while he is close to doing that he's not quite there yet to where he has completely mastered the offense.

Our WR's disappeared tonight, just like the LSU game.

[Todd4State]

This is what I scratch my head about at times when folks insist we run the ball at least a 30% or so of the time. We can't stay spread out (like we are) and forcefully run on an overloaded box (unless you hold like KY was tonight). This offense is about taking what the defense gives you. If that's 9 passes to 1 run ... so be it. There were at least a couple of times tonight when Will should've passed instead of handing off. Will made some misreads tonight and KY was keeping him off balance in that regard IMO.

When LSU was one dimensional with Leonard Fournette, he ran against everyone cause they had the talented blockers in the box with the defenders. But ... when they played Bama ... he didn't go anywhere. They were a one-dimensional running team.

Right! What it comes down to is Leach is so unconventional that some people have a hard time grasping what he is doing.

The reality is running works when you have a physical advantage or a numbers advantage.

[Todd4State]

Our WR's disappeared tonight, just like the LSU game.

I think some of that is on Will though. Hard to make plays when they're not getting the ball.

[dawgday166]

I think some of that is on Will though. Hard to make plays when they're not getting the ball.

Not sure on this. You may be right, but our WRs sometimes got to fight harder when DB is roughing them up some. I'd have to rewatch in slomo and I'm not sure I even want to rewatch this game SMH.

[Commercecomet24]

This is what I scratch my head about at times when folks insist we run the ball at least a 30% or so of the time. We can't stay spread out (like we are) and forcefully run on an overloaded box (unless you hold like KY was tonight). This offense is about taking what the defense gives you. If that's 9 passes to 1 run ... so be it. There were at least a couple of times tonight when Will should've passed instead of handing off. Will made some misreads tonight and KY was keeping him off balance in that regard IMO.

When LSU was one dimensional with Leonard Fournette, he ran against everyone cause they had the talented blockers in the box with the defenders. But ... when they played Bama ... he didn't go anywhere. They were a one-dimensional running team.

A very good rational post(there's not many of those tonight) and accurate

[NCDawg]

Our WR's disappeared tonight, just like the LSU game.

It doesn't seem to me we are very strong either. Rodriguez ran over our defensive players and carried some into the end zone with him, similar to what Ealy at Ole Miss did to us in the Egg Bowl. Makes you wonder about our strength program. Also, Kentucky's OL, which I heard was so bad, pretty much dominated our DL most of the game.

[dawgday166]

A very good rational post(there's not many of those tonight) and accurate

Thanks. Trust me tho ... I'm pissed too. I do think that going forward, Leach does need to make his guys aware that home cooking from the refs is a thing at times, and some teams gonna play dirty ... so they just gotta suck it up and fight thru it somehow.

But if folks step back and look objectively at our all of our programs historically, any time we're getting a lot of media hype AND our fans are all pumped up across the board, we always have the WTF loss. In football I remember getting so irritated with Jackie cause we could beat the crap outta somebody else that was very good, then get beat by somebody we should wipe the field with. I'd have to go research it but I think that happened in '98 too, when we won the West. And that happened under Mullen & JoMo too.

I'm convinced the only reason we won Natty baseball title was almost no one really thought we would till the final out of the last game.

So the knee-jerk reaction to firing Leach isn't the immediate answer. Probability is extremely high that we'd get the same thing with the next coach too. It probably has more to do with how our athletes handle the hoopla that starts to surround them so much more than anything.

[msu15]

It doesn't seem to me we are very strong either. Rodriguez ran over our defensive players and carried some into the end zone with him, similar to what Ealy at Ole Miss did to us in the Egg Bowl. Makes you wonder about our strength program. Also, Kentucky's OL, which I heard was so bad, pretty much dominated our DL most of the game.
Yep. Tyson Brown is a Leach guy though so we are stuck with him.

[BrunswickDawg]

It doesn't seem to me we are very strong either. Rodriguez ran over our defensive players and carried some into the end zone with him, similar to what Ealy at Ole Miss did to us in the Egg Bowl. Makes you wonder about our strength program. Also, Kentucky's OL, which I heard was so bad, pretty much dominated our DL most of the game.

And the past two weeks we dominated both lines against A&M and Arkansas - this isn't a strength and conditioning issue. It's SEC football. Outside of usually 3 teams, anything can happen.