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For a Southeastern Conference school, opening the football season at home is not normally a big deal. For Kentucky, getting to play the season's first game in Commonwealth Stadium Saturday against UT-Martin should be a treat.
This will be UK's first home opener since 2007.
Three times — 2008, 2010 and 2012 — the Cats opened the season at Louisville, In 2009, the first game was against Miami (Ohio) in Cincinnati. In both 2011 and 2013, UK opened in Nashville against Western Kentucky.
"Just playing at home in the opener is exciting to me," second-year UK coach Mark Stoops said Monday. "I know our fans are ready to go. We need to do our part. I know we’ll have great support. We need to go out there and start fast and play good football, play with great energy, play with great discipline, make it exciting for the fans.
Even better for UK is that it will get to play its second game at home, too, against Ohio on Sept. 6.
"I think it’s real important, I do. I think we need to start fast. We need to go out and play well. Like I said, we’ve talked a lot. (South Carolina) Coach (Steve) Spurrier always says it best: In the talking season, we talk a lot," Stoops said.
"We’ve improved. Our football team has worked hard. We’ll see where we’re at. I know we’re going to play better. It will be good to see these young guys get out there and play, see how we’ve improved, see the veterans, guys like Bud (Dupree) and Z (Za'Darius Smith), see them come out and see how much they’ve improved. It will be good to play at home."
After going 2-10 in his first season at Kentucky, Stoops says he feels a "lot better" as the Cats get set to open year two.
"You feel a lot more confident. But as I said, I think even as an assistant throughout all these years, you’re always anxious to get out there in the first game, see what you have, where you are. I know we’ve improved. We’ll see how much," he said.
He says it is always "more comfortable" putting in the offense and defense in year two versus year one.
"We went through a transition last year in‑season. It was good to have a whole off‑season, see what we did well. Players are more comfortable. Coaches are. I feel good about that," Stoops said.
Stoops will still have a young team and could play 10 true freshmen Saturday and will start two redshirt freshmen in the offensive line. Two junior college transfers could also start.
"We put them in pressure situations all through camp. We just got to throw them out there and see what they can do. I expect them to go out and play well," Stoops said. "Some of the wide receivers will be forced into action. I want to say we have four redshirt freshmen that will play, four on the O‑line, four true freshmen will play at wide receiver."
Stoops said there's no magic formula for keeping new players calm.
"That’s part of the unknown that I say we’ll see and how you respond from year to year. Certainly with young guys, some guys are going to go out there for the first time and they’re going to exceed our expectations, then some guys will probably have some rough spots here and there, have some mental mistakes, physical mistakes, things like that," Stoops said.
"That’s why you have to get out there and play. There’s no substitution for experience. You got to get them out there, get them on the field, and get them playing. We tried to put them in as many game‑like situations as we could. We try to prepare them the best we can with all different situations. Had a good camp. Put them through a lot of tests. We’ll see how they go play."
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