Mondays with Bobby, featuring Mitchell Henry

Kentucky week begins with comments from Bobby Petrino, senior center Sean Conway and redshirt sophomore defensive end Gavin Rocker.

Bobby Petrino

“Well I thought we had a good camp. Our players worked extremely hard. I thought our coaches did a good job in our plan for it. We got a lot introduced. Last week we kinda cut back on things and tried to focus more on what it is we’re gonna try to execute here in the first game.

“It’s certainly that time of year where you’re ready to play a game. We’re tired of seeing each other and hitting each other. It’s time to play a game.

“Looking forward to the week of preparation. That’s always a fun time for me because I love going through the process and how we introduce what our schemes are and how we go out and practice it and how we we have our players understand what our plan is and what we expect from our opponent. That’s one of the fun things about football for me and for our staff.

“I’m excited about our football team. I think we’ve done a lot of good things. We have a lot of improvement that we need ahead of us. We’ll line up Saturday night and see where we’re at.”

    Have you named a starting quarterback (depth chart was released earlier in the day): “Oh yeah, I mean, we announced our depth chart. One of the things I’ve always done is I don’t have a press conference when we say who is gonna start at right guard and we don’t have a press conference when we say who’s gonna start at quarterback.

“We did announce our depth chart and Brandon Doughty will be our starting quarterback. He had a good camp. He had a good spring. He’s a young man that is very, very coachable. Really understands what we’re striving for. Does a nice job of getting the ball out and is an accurate thrower and has done a nice job on his leadership.

“DaMarcus Smith has really improved from spring ball to what he’s doing now in the fall. He’s made huge strides. You can tell why he was such a good quarterback in high school. Obviously there was a lot of rust with the two-year layoff. He made it a battle. As we got into the last two weeks of camp, DaMarcus had some really good days and split some reps with the one’s and we have all the confidence in the world if he gets in the game he’ll do a good job.”

Things moving in the right direction? “I think we understand what our gameplan is and our players have worked hard at it. We’re going to continue to teach and continue to test ‘em and see where we’re at and refine the gameplan. We’re moving in the right direction.

“We got a lot accomplished last Friday night in our mock game going through all the different situations that can occur. We did a nice job with our substitutions, a nice job with our tempo – we made huge strides and that’ll definitely benefit us.”

    Record against UK, record in openers: “To me it doesn’t matter. It’s our team, it’s our players that we have right now. We got to get ready to go win a game and we’re gonna work extremely hard on our plan and we’ve got to go out – like I’ve said before the key to us is we need to be better in the second quarter than we were in the first quarter. We need to go a great job at halftime and come out and play better in the third quarter than we did in the first half. And then we’ll find out if we’re tough enough mentally and physically to win the game in the fourth quarter.”

    Facing and unknown UK: “The challenge is you watch video of where they came from. Obviously watching Florida State defense, Texas Tech offense. I have went against Neal Brown when he was the offensive coordinator at Troy. I do understand some of the things he’s done in the past.

“But everybody formulates their team around their talent. They’ll obviously do different things than what we’ve just studied on film. You’re watching other players do the scheme, so you’re not really sure about the talent or the speed level that you’re gonna face.

“But the other great challenge for both teams is we’re not sure what our guys are gonna do either. It’s our first time together in battle. How are we gonna react to the ups and downs and the swings and change of momentums in the game? I think what’s really key for us is we do a great job on the sideline teaching, great job learning, paying attention. Everyone needs to be into it and really getting better as the game goes on.”

 Kicker: “Well they’ve both had good days, they’ve both had days where they’ve struggled a little bit. I felt like we needed to go into this week and really see where we’re at. They’ve both done a nice job.

“I think right now if we were gonna go today, we would probably go with one on the shorter kicks and one on the longer kicks because of the accuracy and strength differences.”

So a short guy and a long guy? “Yeah, if we were going today. But we’re not going today, so we’ll see.”

 Playing two Kentucky quarterbacks: “They’re both very good players. When you look at the (Maxwell) Smith kid, he’s a very, very good thrower, very accurate, more of a pocket passer. When you look at (Jalen) Whitlow he can still make all the throws that they want in their offense and he’s got a quick release and he has the added challenge of defending the guy that can tuck the ball and run with it.

“We’ve been preparing for both and they do a great job of what their scheme has been in the past. It’s something where we have to be aware of who’s in the game. Our calls won’t change a whole lot, but you do have to be aware of rush lanes and how we’re gonna rush the passer and how we’re gonna defend some of the quarterback run schemes when Whitlow’s in the game.”

    Nick Baisch: “He came out in spring and did a nice job and he’s always been a little bit injured I understand. Did a nice job over the summer of rehabbing his neck and came out in the fall and just played extremely hard, did everything we asked him to do.

“A lot of times you have a scholarship in your pocket to reward a walk-on that you can put on scholarship. I felt like he was a person that earned it. When I awarded it to him I told him, I said, “Now I’m not giving you this, you earned this.’ All his teammates were pretty excited about it and it’s fun to see a guy smile and really understand that he did go out and earned it.”

    Players yapping and emotion: “I don’t know anything about all that stuff. We’re just focusing on practicing and getting ready for the game and want to play the game with respect. That’s the one thing we’ve tried to teach our players is respect the game of football, respect our opponents, respect our teammates and play the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”

    UK matchup problems: “They have good players. They’ve got a big offensive front. They’ve got running backs that can run the ball, they’ve got the two quarterbacks, they’re gonna have some young wide receivers just like we are that it’s going to be interesting how they do in their first college football game.

“It’s a different situation when you go into your first game. We’ll just have to see how both groups of young receivers react and play in the game.

“They’re a good football team. On the defensive front they’ve got two big defensive ends that can rush the passer. Obviously one played linebacker last year, but they put his hand down and he did a nice job in the spring game rushing the quarterback.

“They’ve got an experienced group of linebackers and some speed in the secondary. They’re a good football team.”

   Sleep habits the week ahead: “I usually sleep OK, just not very long. You get to sleep early and then you wake up and play a few plays in your mind and get up and go in the office. A lot of times the best sleep I get is Friday night because of all the grind during the week, you’re ready to close your eyes for a couple hours anyway.”

   Saturday’s uniforms: “They’ll be red and white. I know that.”

Sean Conway

   Final season opener: “I’m excited. It’s my last season. I wanna go out on top. I’m excited about the season, excited about our team, we got a chance to be really great.”

    Underdog mentality: “You know, I don’t really read into that. We’re just going down to Nashville to play ball. Just another team, we wanna win, obviously, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”

    Brandon Doughty: “He’s done excellent. This offense is real complex and he’s picked it up faster and more better than anybody I’ve been around. He’s been doing great.”

 UK players feeling disrespected: “I know myself meant no disrespect to them. We were celebrating a win, it was huge for our program and our players. We always at WKU wanna show class and I apologize if someone felt disrespected.”

Feelings toward WKU students who wear UK gear: “I wouldn’t call ‘em out, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to talk to ‘em either.”

Gavin Rocker

 Feelings toward WKU students who wear UK gear: “Not necessarily call them out, but we obviously don’t approve of it.”

    Preparing for UK: “The challenge is just picking up the new defensive scheme and everyone learning their role in the defense and things like that. Just making sure we’re ready. It’s not a really a big, super challenge, we’re just making sure we’re on point.”

    Prefer Max Smith? “I don’t look at it as an advantage. Whoever they decide to play, that’s who were gonna go against. And we’re preparing for UK, not just one person.”

Filed under: Football, Talkin’ bout the Tops