Kentucky football is one day into offseason mode, and things are happening at a blazing speed. The Wildcats have already lost multiple recruits, there are rumors of transfers, and even coaches are leaving or being dismissed. There is one coach who should go, and I think it’s obvious to most anyone who watched Kentucky football this year: offensive line coach Eric Wolford.
If Mark Stoops is going to stay, which he seems to be bent on, Wolford has to go. Stoops has a clear plan when it comes to playing offensive football, and it is around running the clock, rushing for chunk yards, protecting the ball, and slowing the game down. It’s not flashy; it’s a grind. This can’t happen without a good offensive line. Negative yards are killers to this sort of style of play. Quarterbacks have to take minimal sacks, the runningback can’t be tackled for loss (or at least barely). Why? Every yard matters when you are doing 2-4 yards at a time.
Kentucky ranked 115th in sacks allowed. They gave up 35 sacks on the year for 291 total yards with an average of almost 3 sacks a game. If you only take in the SEC games, it’s way worse. Even with all the games thrown in, Kentucky is 4th worst in the nation in total yards lost due to sacks.
Kentucky also ranked 88th in tackles for loss allowed. In this category, they lost 370 yards behind the line of scrimmage on the season. That’s terrible. Sure, some of these may be screens that didn’t work, but a lot of these are either quarterback runs or simple blown-up running plays because the line didn’t block.
It goes beyond just this year. The development doesn’t seem to be there, the consistency isn’t there, and the discipline is clearly not there. The Wildcats’ offensive line unit was called for penalties throughout the entire season. If there are coaching changes and it’s not at the top, then Wolford needs to go.
