Kentucky Three Keys: Central Michigan

Three-keys-Kentucky

The Kentucky Wildcats begin a huge season for head coach Mark Stoops with the visit of Central Michigan. The Wildcats lead the series 6-0 all-time and if they are to improve on a couple of stagnant campaigns then this is simply a game they must win.

By Steve Wright

Here are the three keys:

Quash the upset early

The Chippewas will have plenty of confidence coming into this contest. They have taken down Power Five opponents in each of the last two seasons, stunning No. 22 Oklahoma State 30-27 in 2016, before routing Kansas 45-27 last year. Also – and we checked this – Kansas is still classed as a Power Five football school as of 2018.

This means that Central Michigan has been here and done this before. They are not going to get overwhelmed by running into a Power Five stadium and hearing the noise coming from a passionate opening day crowd. While it is a concern for Central Michigan that they only return 10 starters from a team that went 8-5 in 2017, head coach John Bonamego has been here and done this before.

The way to stop a upset happy team is to cut them down to size early. Kentucky needs to use that initial wave of crowd support to build up a lead of a couple of scores. That will make it much harder for CMU to run them down.

Win the running back battle

The running back battle was going to be fascinating even before CM starter Jonathan Ward decided it would be smart to call out Benny Snell this week. Ward is a nice back and he was impressive down the stretch for the Chippewas last season when he rushed for 625 yards over the final five games. That burst in output after he was installed as the primary ball carrier saw Ward top 1,000 yards on the season.

Ward, though, is no Snell.

Perhaps the best returning back in the entire SEC, Snell rushed for 1,333 yards and a monstrous 19 touchdowns in 2017. Ward, by comparison, had just 10 rushing touchdowns on the year.

Ward claimed this week that he didn’t known Snell and that the running back was “nothing special”. On Saturday Snell will get to return fire, but this time he will be doing his talking on the field.

Believe in Terry Wilson

The quarterback battle for the Wildcats’ starting spot under center in 2018 was real. Gunnar Hoak and Terry Wilson battled down to the last days of camp before Wilson was named as the starter. Even with Wilson now in place, Stoops has refused to rule out the possibility of more than one quarterback taking snaps this weekend.

This would be a mistake.

Wilson – a former Oregon signee who last played for Garden City JuCo in Western Kansas – needs to feel like he has the trust of his coach. There is nothing worse than playing musical chairs at the quarterback position, especially when a player feels like he could be pulled from the game for one bad decision. That creates a gun-shy player, someone that will be safe instead of trying to make a play. That situation helps no one.

Stoops has made his choice. He now needs to ride Wilson and see what he has got.

About 14Powers.com 4609 Articles
14Powers.com: Serving SEC Football, Basketball and Baseball fans since 2016.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.