ESPN has recently been releasing previews on all 12 SEC teams. The East preview was two days ago; the West previews were yesterday. Sadly, they were all “insider” content, meaning you better have a subscription that you pay for already or cough up some dough. Otherwise… no preview for you.
Until right now! That’s right, here’s a look into the preview that you don’t have to pay for. You can thank us whenever.
Blue Ribbon gives a hat tip to Brooks and the advancement of the program, seemingly buying into what the coach is selling. Definitely a good thing, since every other preseason mag has predicted doom and gloom for the Cats this year. Blue Ribbon takes it all with a grain a salt. They have hope, but not much.
From there, they basically break down every player in every position. It’s stuff you already know. We’re skipping it for the good stuff, which is the rankings they provide at the end.
Grading the Wildcats
Unit Grade
Offense C
Special teams B
Defense B-
Intangibles C
The Blue Ribbon guys aren’t convinced that an improved o-line is going to be able to sustain our running attack when 9 are in the box. And with no quarterback set and Dicky Lyons as the only big returning WR, they grade the Cats at a C. I’m not so sure that will be the case this year. Joker’s a great OC, Sanders a great QB coach. Look at the last two years… they made those guys, not vice versa. But understandably, the offense is graded as middle of the pack.
Special teams? Eh… I could care less. Seiber still needs to get consistent.
Defense. Blue Ribbon tries to give UK the benefit of the doubt when the coaches said the defense will be improved. Most of the other mags usually laughed. I think that’s why Blue Ribbon gave the defense a B- instead of a more likely B. I think the defense is a strong B, leaning to B+. But like I said, you aren’t going to get anyone outside the state to take that view.
Intangibles. The C rating is deserved. Why? The defensive and offense leaders were lost. Potential defensive leader Jeremy Jarmon sat out most of the spring and the lack of a quarterback leads the offense faceless. Dicky Lyons Jr. has tried to become that offensive leader during the summer, so we’ll see. As for the defense, Marcus McClinton and Jeremy Jarmon could step up. Until they do, I think a C rating is good.
And I’ll leave you with the final remarks from the Blue Ribbon crew:
Many doubt if UK can play in a bowl again this year. But Brooks has a deeper, faster team and one that goes into this season with much more confidence thanks to two straight bowl wins. Kentucky will need a few breaks and a big upset like the ones it pulled the last two years against Georgia and LSU to win seven games, but a seven-win season is not an impossible task
