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By: LARRY VAUGHT
Despite its lack of production in last week's loss at Georgia, Kentucky offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said he thinks his unit's attitude is fine.
"It wasn’t good Saturday (at Georgia), to be honest with you, but I didn’t think that anything was very good Saturday. I think that whatever – you can’t really put your finger on confidence," Dawson said Tuesday.
"Confidence is something that exudes through the whole group, and I think that when you struggle a little bit everybody searches for answers and everybody tends to point fingers. I think the best way to go about it when you struggle is to regroup and have some self accountability, including myself, and then understand that – put it this way: there’s people that are frustrated, but the people that are frustrated aren’t playing perfect either.
"Does that make sense? So, be careful. Be careful with your frustration, because if you want to sit down and watch film with me and you want to point then we can do that.”
That certainly makes it sound like the divide on the team that coach Mark Stoops said Monday did not exist might just be real.
Dawson said UK didn't play with the same "physical approach" at Georgia or the same speed it had all year.
"Throughout the course of the week, in my opinion, we have to have attention to detail. We have to stress it, we have to push it, and we have to get the same effort and physical play out of our kids week to week," Dawson said.
"I felt, even though the couple weeks beforehand obviously we didn’t win the games, but we didn’t play poorly. And I thought that game we played poorly and I thought really we coached tentatively. We gotta let it go and we gotta play a little more free.”
Coached tentatively? So how would he grade his coaching against Georgia?
“I wouldn’t give myself a very high grade. No. What percentage do you want to put on it? Do you want to grade me? I’d probably grade myself lower than I graded them – I promise that – which I typically do every week," Dawson said.
In other losses, Dawson thought UK at least attacked even when it did not execute. But not at Georgia.
"At times we executed really good and at times we’ve executed about as bad as you could, but we were always attacking. I think that’s probably my one disappointment from Saturday," Dawson said.
"I took as much blame as anybody did. I mean, heck, I’m not one to go without blame. I evaluate myself as easy as I evaluate those guys (players). Everybody’s mindset is a puzzle: it’s got to fit together. I did think that evaluating this season we’ve been attacking, and that is who we are and we play better like that. Whenever we have some success we typically roll. And whenever we don’t … But that is kind of an element of our offense. It’s always been like that.
"I don’t know if it’s good, bad or indifferent, but it is what it is. You’re dealing with kids and that’s the psyche of offensive football. When you’re in a rhythm, you’re in a rhythm, and when you’re not, you’re not. Now, it’s ultimately my job to get us in a rhythm earlier. That’s my job. I can’t go out there and throw and catch, but I can get us in a rhythm.”
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