Mike Archer on WLAP last night

[Brian McCat]

We've got more people in winter conditioning than ever.

The staff is trying to find out who the team leaders will be in 2006. There are only 3 seniors on defense, 4 on offense. Some younger players (Rafael Little, Wesley Woodyard) are holding older players accountable on conditioning drills.

We will still be young, but they are working very hard. For the first time, we will have physical bodies on the D-Line that keep us from having to take a lot of chances on defense with blitzes and the like.

The high expectations of Josh Minton and Micah Johnson are realistic, because they WILL have a shot to earn a playing spot. Physically, Micah Johnson looks like an NFL LB, compared him physically to Levon Kirkland.

There's no question that we finally have depth on defense. Other SEC schools play 2 sets of O-linemen and D-linemen and so the staff is going to play 2 sets of DL, LB no matter what, due to last year's injuries.

Roger Williams/Muhammad Abdullah played every snap on defense last year (980 snaps), plus special teams, due to the injuries.

Conferred with Training Staff, came up with a theory on why the injuries occurred last year: many occurred to young players in August and September when you're playing in hot weather. Most of them just didn't have bodies that were ready to play in the SEC.

When Braxton Kelley went down vs. MSU, he had already played 500 snaps as a true freshman on defense, plus 150 more on special teams. As a 17 year old, his body was not ready for that sort of physical activity. When the knee injury occurred, it wasn't due to contact.

The kids gave full effort, battled every game, felt like they weren't treated fairly by the refs, especially against Auburn.

Lamar Mills ripped his knee because his body gave out- he had played more snaps that game than any other in his career.

Jim Madaleno looked at all the video for all the injuries, and Mills' injury was not due to contact either.

The good thing about last year a lot of young players got experience.

Has been talking with Micki DeMoss- realized that you have to be part coach, psychiatrist, psychologist. 17 year olds have fragile minds, and they tend to dwell on the negative. If you get a little positive, that makes them work a little harder in those close game situations. You can't put a price tag on winning.

We have numbers, and the players understand our expectations. There's a comfort level there finally.

[I. Melvin]

Thanks, Brian! We foolish folk who left Lexington miss this kind of stuff.

Sounds good. But you wonder why an experienced coach like Archer is just now learning some fundamental understandings of dealing with young people - oh well, better late than never.

Lavon Kirkland, ay? I just got the Bob Smile ...

[ukbob]

I still question the conditioning regimen for the program and have before. His comments make me question it more.

Archer has some things to prove, IMO. He must get this defense, now that he has numbers, to perform at a higher level.

[baldcat]

I've been down on Archer for the last three years.

He now has the most depth and talent since he's been here.

So if our D still looks as porous as cheesecloth, put him on the first train out of here.

[trublue4life]

Thanks Brian! I tuned in Cutler last night right after Archer had been on. I really hated missing him, but you have filled the void! IMO, the only direction our d-line can go is up, so I look for more numbers to equal improvement. Also, I like the fact that they are committed to taking action to reduce injuries as much as is possible. The number of snaps theory in relation to physical maturity makes a whole lot of sense.

[poodoo]

Thanks, Brian, for the great report. I love reading about football, regardless of the time of year it is.

I was not surprised to read that Wesley Woodyard was holding players accountable for winter conditioning. I was a bit surprised to see Rafael Little in that regard, but I am most pleased about it.

I likethat Coach Archer talked with Coach DeMoss. What she said about the importance of being positive with the younger players makes sense to me. Coach Archer worked in the NFL for a while and perhaps forgot a bit how fragile youngsters can be. I can see how being positive with playerscould cause players to work harder.

In regard to the injuries, it seems that the coaching staff is going with fewer snaps for linemen and linebackers, rotating two sets of players as do most SEC schools. Let's hope and pray we see fewer injuries.

[boomdaddy]

ukbob wrote: I still question the conditioning regimen for the program and have before. His comments make me question it more.

Archer has some things to prove, IMO. He must get this defense, now that he has numbers, to perform at a higher level.



This reminds me of the Reds, who used up Don Gullets arm, by overpitching him in the 70s. I sure hope they keep the players fresh, this season. One thing I hate seeing is a coach in any sport that is afraid to use his bench when a tough team comes to town.

I also hope the offense throws a second line out there, with a new QB and center, letting them play as a unit. With all of the redshirt O linemen, there should be enough cream to rise to the top.

[RCS]

Frankly if the D does not improve drastically it won't just be Archer out the door it will be the whole staff. You can't win with a D like we have fielded the last 2 years.

I have been saying that at some point you have to hold the coaches some what responsible for all the injuries because it has become a pattern of their time here. What Archer said seems to confirmt this. Hopefully they can correct it. It is also why it is so much easier in a bad conference to have a good team and to beat 1 or 2 good teams if they are the only ones you play. If you look at UL they have had hardly any injuries the last few years. I think a lot of this has to do with being able to play a bunch of different guys since they had so many games that they are winning by a bunch.

[Matt Dillon]

RCS wrote: Frankly if the D does not improve drastically it won't just be Archer out the door it will be the whole staff. You can't win with a D like we have fielded the last 2 years.

I have been saying that at some point you have to hold the coaches some what responsible for all the injuries because it has become a pattern of their time here. What Archer said seems to confirmt this. Hopefully they can correct it. It is also why it is so much easier in a bad conference to have a good team and to beat 1 or 2 good teams if they are the only ones you play. If you look at UL they have had hardly any injuries the last few years. I think a lot of this has to do with being able to play a bunch of different guys since they had so many games that they are winning by a bunch.



A complete overhaul is what concerns me. I feel we have some very good asst. coaches on this staff.

[gerntz]

Not sure how you get this from this report.

We have more people in winter conditioning than ever(under RB I presume)simply because we have more people now - period.

I think you can question their wisdom in playing young kids too much from the injuries suffered, but hard to do significant conditioning in 3-4 weeks before season starts with incoming FR. To me, sounds like we risked long-term health for short-term gain: If so, not good IMO.

ukbob wrote: I still question the conditioning regimen for the program and have before. His comments make me question it more.

Archer has some things to prove, IMO. He must get this defense, now that he has numbers, to perform at a higher level.

[Brian McCat]

Matt Dillon wrote: A complete overhaul is what concerns me. I feel we have some very good asst. coaches on this staff.

I guess I'm with you at this point. We're only 3 years into the new regime, and it would 5 years before we win if we change coaches now.

Let the current staff have 2 more years, and let's see how it looks then. The losing sucks, but 5 more years of sucking under a new staff would suck even more.

[gerntz]

A new staff wouldn't have near the numbers deficit nor talent gap this one was left with. I'd be much less patient with them and MB were this to go down.

[Sam K.]

Thanks Brian. Sounds like a great summary.

[Mark Blueblood]

Thanks for the report Brian.

I think Archer can get it done. As my son and I were watching the substitution on defense at the Louvul game this past year - I remember leaning over to him and saying "we're running out of big guys". That's been the problem for this team for the past 3 years.

Well, finally we have some. With some experience, I think they'll be fine.

[T75]

I. Melvin wrote:
Sounds good. But you wonder why an experienced coach like Archer is just now learning some fundamental understandings of dealing with young people - oh well, better late than never.


Melvin, I'm retired after spending about 35 years managing people, sometimes large numbers of people. And I've got to tell you that I, and I believe most managers, recognize that they don't know it all by the timethey're 50---and keep learning alltheir lives if they want to stay current and viable in their business. Sometimes it takes a lot of people-pressure to get through tosomeone and I think this has contributed to Archer's "softening stance"of the last couple of years. Being a smart guy, he'll try to adjust his natural tendencies to whatever he thinks will make him a more successful coach. I'm sure his failure at LSU has had a tremendous lasting effect on his approach to life and coaching.

Speaking of DeMoss, she has just come out from under a boss who is one of thetoughest but most successful in the business. Onyone who could work well under Pat all those years has got to have the business of being a surviving manager down "pat". (Yeah, I know.) I'd think Archer could probably learn from her. And I'd admire him more if I felt that he was man enough to consult with her.

[boomdaddy]

Even though Moss is in another sport, she has had tochange the losing attitude that has lingered on that program and has gotten her team to beleive that they can compete with anybody. She is a good reference for any coach of an underdog team to talk to.

[EricBigNally]

Great post. I can't wait until the season starts and I really hope that we can avoid the injuries. Not only does that kill moral for the team and hinder their ability to match up somewhat with a much better opponent as we faced most of last season but it is just plain inhumane to just sit there like "OK another one went down, NOW lets send another one on." As opposed to switching it up somewhat throughout the game.

I too have questioned our conditioning in the past years. If you watch a lot of the big games we "almost" won. We lost them all in the 4th quarter. We ran out of steam and didn't have anyone to sub in for the most part. I really hope that is about to change over the course of the next couple of years.

[RV]

The subject of conditioning keeps coming up and I want to address this. I'm going to use (gulp) ul as an example.

Most folks on here would agree that ul appears to be a well-conditioned team while UK perhaps appears to be a not-so-well conditioned team. I'm here to say that appearances can be deceiving.

During the Tards bowl game against VaTech they jumped out to their usual big lead but unlike most of their other games they couldn't just put it on cruise control and run the subs and scrubs in because of the quality of their opponent. ul had to play their front-line players much more than they were used to to try andextend their lead but it didn't work. VaTech kept running players in and out and inevitably the Hokies came back and won, because they wore ul down like has happened to UK repeatedly over the years.

Our 'supposed' conditioning problems are nothing more than lack of depth and having to play youthful players too early (before they are physically ready). ul ran into the same brick wall in the fourth quarter of their bowl game as we commonlyhave in most of our games.Soon those occurances will bea distant memory.

Do you realize we took 46 or so scholarship players on the road most of the time last year and a great many of them were Freshmen? Do you also realize you're allowed to take 65 players on the road? Why did we take so few?

'CAUSE WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY FREAKIN' DEPTH!

... due to our run-in with the NCAA. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming the NCAA because we brought this situation on ourself but our numbers were down so low and our having to use starters for way too many snaps andyoung players extensively, we incurred a huge number of injuries. If you think about it, it's anunderstandable result.

We will still be very young as a squad this year so I do expect some injuries but we will also be much deeper as we will now have 'players' at least 2 and in most cases 3 and 4 deep on our roster. Ergo less time played, less fatigue, fewer mental lapses and more get up and go in the fourth quarter. Just hide and watch.

I bet everyone will be saying we're a much better conditioned team but it will just be because we have more players.

[gerntz]

RV, I agree 100%. :thumbup

[Levi]

Hey RV-----------:thumbup---:wildcatface

[poodoo]

but our numbers were down so low and our having to use starters for way too many snaps andyoung players extensively, we incurred a huge number of injuries. QUOTE by RV

________

Exactly, RV.Too, that's what Coach Archer was saying, and it makes sense to me. Also, as you've stated in this post, the undue injuries we suffered were thus related to the effects of PROBATION. Now let's just hope with probation mostly in the past, injuries will be far less a problem this season.