Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops has always been known to be there for his players and his team through thick and thin. He has always shown his support for his guys, but things are slightly different heading into Florida. Instead of loving on his players, Stoops actually made it a point to call out some of his players and challenge them to be better moving forward.

The first four weeks of the season were looked at as the easy part of the schedule, for the most part. Playing against two MAC schools, an FCS team, and a rather weak Vanderbilt team, Kentucky should have cruised into Week 5, but there are some very evident issues.

Now, as if it’s a weekly ritual, Stoops opens the week “pissed off”, and it sounds like that he is finally done waking up on the wrong side of the bed. If Kentucky is going to finish the way they want to in 2023, it’s time to get their butt in gear.

Problems at Center Are Unacceptable

During Stoops’ Monday presser, he talked about how Jager Burton’s critical errors against Akron were just flat out unacceptable.

“I’m not happy with that. We have to overcome it. We overcame one [bad snap] and scored a touchdown. I don’t want to make a habit of that. It killed one drive, but we have to get better. There’s options. We look at other players, we continue to develop other players. We continue to develop Jager [Burton] and give him experience and opportunity to grow.”

Rest of the O-Line Needs to Step Up

It’s not just Jager Burton that has underperformed this season. The offensive line as a whole has not played up to the standards set at UK in previous years.

Stoops made note of this as well, saying, “As a group, I challenged the offensive line this past week and we’ll continue to. I think as a group you know, we need to continue to grow.” He added, “We had a well-designed play and we got to block. We missed a block on the perimeter and [Brenden] Bates is usually a hell of a blocker and a good player. He missed blocking flat with the guy in open space or we’re one-on-one with a safety and Barion.”

Stoops wrapped up his offensive line talk by saying that the blame “not all on any one player”. The protection as a whole has a lot of room to get better.

“There’s a Reason People Call It a Sophomore Slump”

Against Akron, Barion Brown had just two receptions for 19 yards, and Dane Key saw no production on offense. Going into the season, those two were expected to be big contributors. That, however, hasn’t quite been the case, and Stoops isn’t happy about that.

“I talked about it with them. ‘Don’t believe all this (hype).’ You’re going into your sophomore season — there’s a reason people call it a sophomore slump… Because you had some success as a freshman, maybe you’re not truly in tune with every aspect of the game.”

Stoops said he wants Brown and Key to continue “grinding it out”. Otherwise, they’ll finish with disappointing years, and that would not bode well for Kentucky.

All of the kinks and inner workings should have probably been settled by Week 5, but they aren’t. People who should be leading this team are just not living up to expectations. If Kentucky is going to be competitive in the SEC this season, then they must figure things out soon because the schedule only gets tougher from here.