Kentucky Preview: Offensive Strategy

This year’s South Carolina vs Kentucky matchup should be another good one as the series has been close in recent years, with the Gamecocks riding a two-game winning streak by a combined 13 points. 

The engine that makes Kentucky churn is their offense, led now by offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan. The Wildcat offense has been fairly consistent from an identity standpoint over the last decade under Coach Stoops; a rarity in today’s college football landscape. 

Based on their tendencies and from watching film of last week’s matchup with Southern Miss, here are the three main pillars for Kentucky’s offensive play-calling strategy.

• Window Dressing (Motion, Decoy Routes)

Kentucky is one of the best teams in the country at utilizing window dressing for their offensive play calling strategy. This starts with pre-snap motion with their primary goal to get the defensive players, especially the second-level players, to think just a little bit before the play starts. Any adjustment by the defense enables the offensive line and quarterback to be more confident in their reads. To be honest, this is something I wish South Carolina did a bit more regularly and purposefully. If a defender is caught with a slightly delayed reaction at the snap due to the motion, he’ll be a step late. This means that a short yardage gain becomes a medium yardage gain, and the Wildcats are in more manageable second and third down situations. 

The second part of this strategy is to lull the defense, primarily the safeties, to sleep with the same passing routes repeated throughout early parts of the game, and then hit them with an explosive deep play. An example of this is a crossing route from the slot receiver. Early in the game, this will be a decoy route or a check-down option, but later in the game, the Wildcats tweak this route to be a “leak” concept. In the leak, the slot receiver crosses the middle part of the field and then they quickly turn it up for a vertical shot deep in between the numbers and sideline. The safeties may take their eyes off this crosser and flow with the other deep routes and the next thing they know, there’s a 30-yard pass upfield they’re not in position to defend. 

The below example shows the tight end on the leak but can easily be the slot receiver or running back, depending on formation. 

• Tempo Runs

This is a new wrinkle from previous Kentucky offenses. The Wildcats get to their next play faster than they have in years. If you combine this with the window dressing, you’ve now got a defense that is tired and thinking more than they have to in practice and in most games. This helps give the offensive line an advantage - especially in the run game. Not a big factor early in the game but a growing factor over the next three quarters. Defensive line rotation here will be absolutely key. 

Based on what we saw from South Carolina last week, I expect to see Kentucky to go at the outside of the defense with runs in an effort to get Kyle Kennard and Dylan Stewart to attack upfield less. How will Kennard and Stewart respond? Stay tuned for another breakdown here where I go in-depth on the defensive line.

• Ride the Hot Hand

Coach Stoops has historically, at least against South Carolina, that he has no problem repeating plays once he sees a weakness in the defense or finds a player on-fire, so to say. Flashbacks of Jojo Kemp at wildcat and Stanley Williams off-tackle in past matchups .. those still haunt South Carolina fans… myself included.

The x-factor on this year’s team is quarterback Brock Vandagriff. The Georgia-transfer quarterback is a legitimate running threat and I'll bet Coach Stoops has a few series already planned to ride Vandagriff down into the red zone. 

Here’s a 2nd and 7 where Kentucky lines up in Empty with Trips bunched to the boundary. This is a RED FLAG for the defense as you can see how vulnerable it leaves the middle of the field. 

Advantage: Kentucky and you can see what Vandagriff is able to do with his legs.

Vandagriff skates free for 13 yards here and gets Kentucky closer to scoring range. It will be important for Gamecocks linebackers, nickel and safeties to be in sync here.

Vandagriff also has a quick trigger on shorter routes, which works well for a Wildcats receiving corps that likes to lean on yards-after-catch. The biggest threat out wide for Kentucky is Ja’Mori Maclin who can really run after the catch and make defenders look silly in one-on-one tackling situations, but look for the ball to be spread around evenly early until someone gets hot. They’ve got a balanced group that looks similar to South Carolina’s coming off the bus (size, stature) 

The good news for Gamecocks fans is that while Vandagriff is the x-factor for the Wildcat offense, he’s also shown the want to try to squeeze in tight throws. Southern Miss was only able to get one of them intercepted but Vandagriff threw a couple more that would have been interceptions against a better defense. I’d bet the Gamecocks secondary is excited to see this match up, from my experience being in the film room against quarterbacks similar to Vandagriff.

Read About Gamecocks & the Author, Matt O'Brien HERE