Stoops says Wildcats made progress in first scrimmage of camp

LEXINGTON, Ky. (KT) -- Kentucky's football team has been working on its offensive production during the first two weeks of fall workouts and the Wildcats showed signs of improvement in a closed scrimmage Saturday.

"(I'm) very pleased with the progress we've made this week," Stoops said Saturday following a closed scrimmage. "I feel like the latter part of this week and the scrimmage, we've really picked it up, have become a sharper football team. Not as many mistakes. It was good to get out, put the ball down and get a bunch of reps out there and have a good physical day today."

The main point of emphasis for Stoops during the scrimmage was to get his squad used to the gameday experience with the season opener less than three weeks away.

"We got a lot of situational work done, which was really good," he said. "We got some goal line, we got a lot of third downs, we had some third and fourth and shorts, two minute drill. Just better. Definite improvement and we all know that's what we need to do. Just keep improving, put our head down and just get better each and every day."

A top priority for the offense, Stoops said was finishing in the red zone. The team's offense averaged 20.6 points per game last year -- 119th in the nation -- and was 114th in total yards with 330.4 yards per contest.

"The bottom line is we scored some points and that's something we know we need to improve," he said.

The Kentucky coach liked the way quarterbacks Zach Calzada and Cutter Boley performed in the scrimmage.

"I think both quarterbacks played good," he said. "We played three but Zach (Calzada) and Cutter (Boley) got the bulk of the reps. They both played very good. They took care of the football. Conversion on some critical third downs was an improvement."

Running backs Dante Dowdell and Seth McGowan are expected to carry the load this season, but were limited in the scrimmage, but backup Jason Patterson "showed up" and impressed Stoops.

"I thought he made some people miss. He's a tough runner, his vision was good and that was good to see."