Mondays with Bobby, featuring Mitchell Henry

The Hilltoppers scrimmaged in full Saturday morning at Houchens-Smith Stadium. Passing game struggled at times as the ones went against the ones. Brandon Doughty’s first two drives ended in an interception by Kiante Young on a deep ball in the end zone and a stopped third-down conversion inside the 30. His first pass after the “halftime” break was a pick-6 by true freshman Marcus Ward who jumped an out route on the left sideline and took it 40 yards to the house.

Comments belowe from Bobby Petrino, offensive coordinator Jeff Brohm, defensive end Gavin Rocker and Doughty.

Bobby Petrino

“We finished the week out with a good scrimmage. I’m really impressed with the way our guys worked this week. It was a grind on ‘em. Getting up early, practice, meetings, in the weight room, either practice again or a meeting and a walk-through again. We did a good job with the leadership, keeping a good attitude and working hard at it. And we got better, got better as the week went on.

“Today there’s always the good and the bad out there, but obviously our one defense did a nice job. We got a lot of experience over there, so they really know how to play the game and they’re playing fast and making plays.

“Our one offense, in the first part of it, drove the ball, made some big plays, but we gotta go finish with touchdowns. That was something that I wasn’t very happy with with our one offense. We gotta finish with touchdowns.

“For the most part it was a good scrimmage. Saw some good things out of all the quarterbacks, saw some bad things out of all the quarterbacks. Consistency is something that we have to continue to improve on at that position.

“It was good to see our young receivers make plays and show their speed and ability to run after the catch. I was happy with that. About midweek they hit the wall a little bit and things were really hard on ‘em, but they stuck it out and got refreshed and did a good job today.

“Still got a long ways to go, still got two weeks to go and looking forward to the work.”

    Run game: “We’re getting pretty good running the ball. We got a big offensive front and we probably run the ball more during the week than we do actually in scrimmages because I’m trying to put the pressure on the quarterbacks to make the plays.

“Obviously Antonio (Andrews) is doing a great job. I really like Keyshawn Simpson and Anthony Wales continues to make big plays. Every time he touches the ball his speed shows up and he has the ability to make big plays and he keeps doing it.

“Our run game is doing alright right now.”

    Anthony Wales: “What it does is we gotta make sure we got a good package in for him and get him the ball in open space. He does a good job in between the tackles, he just needs a crease and he can bounce it and take it the distance.

“He’s your homerun hitter. He’s a good change-of-pace and can come in and make some big plays for us.”

    Brandon Doughty: “I didn’t really notice that he was off, the passing game wasn’t as timed as we would like it and we didn’t execute it as well as we did (last week). Made a couple mistakes early with protections.

“It’s not always the quarterback. He’s the guy that always gets the blame and the reason for it, but it takes all of us. It’s all 11 guys, making sure our protection works, making sure our tight ends and running backs are either involved in the protection or where they need to be in their route so either they get the ball or somebody else is open and our receivers being exactly where they were on time.

“We don’t have it all exactly where we need it yet. But we are getting better and we are stepping in the right direction.”

 Marcus Ward: “He has had a good week. He’s a big guy that can really run and hit. Again, he was kind of like those freshman where he had a couple days early in the week that he was a little sluggish and not playing as fast as we need him to. We addressed it and he came back with great energy and focus.

“He’s gonna be a great player before it’s over with and we would plan on him playing this year.”

    Hurry-up offense: “A little bit better today. Last time we ran two-minute it wasn’t very good at all in the scrimmage. As the week went on we practiced it everyday, so we’re getting better at it.

“Then we’ve been running a lot of tempo offense against our defense so we can get the calls in and get lined up. Our conference and Kentucky and Tennessee are no-huddle, so we have to really be in good comfort zone to be able to defend that type of offense.”

Jeff Brohm

    Passing game: “There was some inconsistencies. We did make some plays, had some young guys make some plays and step up and that was good to see because we’re gonna need ‘em.

“But we had our moments. Had some times where we didn’t execute, we forced the ball and we can’t do that. Our quarterback’s gotta know that he’s gotta run the offense, be efficient and really take control and not turn the ball over, so we need to improve on that.”

    Better to have bad days now? “It always good to have as much live work as you can get because that’s when the real bullets come and people start to not concentrate as much, get a little antsy, make mistakes and you want to have that as much as you can, especially at the quarterback play. It’s good that that happened today.

“We’ll obviously go back and study the tape and learn from that and really learn from the whole camp that we’ve had so far and I think we’ll make improvements and try to pick things up.”

Tight ends: “That’s a good position for us. They gotta make plays for us, they’re athletic, they can run and they’re valuable parts to this offense.

“They’ve gotta be our big-time players and be the strength of the offense as a tight end.”

    WRs: “We’re getting all the young guys ready. We got quite a few young wide receivers and they’re talented. Some are a little farther along than the others, but we’re getting them all ready to play. I see us giving them all a chance to get in there and hopefully they’re ready to go Game One.

“It’s a process we gotta speed up. They did make strides today with live bullets and that was good to see, but we gotta keep pounding away at it.”

Gavin Rocker

 Your play in the scrimmage: “The second scrimmage I think I did pretty good. It was the second one, so it was a lot sharper than the first one and you could see a lot of improvement with everybody.”

 D-line: “I think we’re coming along good. Everybody’s finally understanding the system and our part in it.”

    Going against one offense: “I feel like that was pretty good going against the ones so you can get higher competition so we can get a true test of ourselves and see how we are. I thought we did pretty good today.”

Brandon Doughty

   Passing game: “I thought we got a lot accomplished out there today. You’re never satisfied with a pick-6 and that’s something I still have to keep working on and it’s an everyday process. But I think the passing game concepts – those freshmen receivers are really learning the schemes and it’s kinda fun to watch freshmen receivers grow as a whole.”

 Tight ends: “Those guys are our bread-and-butter and they’re gonna help me out whenever I need a safety valve or someone to go to if I’m in trouble. Those guys are always getting open for me.”

    Closer to being the starter? “I’m really not thinking about it still. I got a lot of things to learn, a lot of things to work on still and you gotta grind it everyday and just keep grinding at it.”

    WRs: “I thought that was probably the best thing I got out of this scrimmage is that our freshmen receivers, Taywan Taylor and (Nicholas) Norris, they’re getting down to getting the ball and they’re running their routes crisp. We’ve gelled this week. We’ve kinda put an emphasis on it this week to get those guys involved and been studying the playbook with them every night. We’re getting after it.”

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