Throughout three practices this week and really most of the spring, the Kentucky defense had its way.

After a particularly lackluster effort from the offense on Friday, Neal Brown threw down the gauntlet to his offensive troops heading into a Saturday scrimmage.

"We challenged them this morning because I didn't think they competed at all yesterday," Brown said. "I thought they turned it down and that wasn't good enough. We're not going to accept not playing hard, not playing physical."

The message was received and the result encouraging.

"We were just trying to respond," sophomore running back Josh Clemons said. "Yesterday the defense got after us a little bit and Coach got onto us and motivated us to come out here and get the job done today."

Mark Stoops said UK's third scrimmage was the offense's best day of the spring. Some of that can be chalked up to the natural "ebb and flow" of spring football - borrowing Brown's words - but Saturday marked a significant step forward as the Wildcats install a new offensive system.

"Today was really the first day that I thought we looked like an SEC offense," offensive coordinator Neal Brown said. "I thought our guys competed hard today, they had good energy, we finished plays, and they had fun."

Many of the mistakes that have plagued UK throughout the spring - turnovers, penalties, dropped passes, missed assignments - disappeared for a day. As a result, the offense was able to both sustain long drives and hit big plays as the Cats worked for the first time in Commonwealth Stadium, the site of next week's Blue/White Spring Game.

"I think for the first time since I've been here I had one side really take over and make some plays and dominate a practice or a scrimmage," Stoops said.

Fans hearing about the offense's good day will likely picture the ball flying all over the field in Brown's Air Raid attack, and quarterbacks Maxwell Smith, Patrick Towles and Jalen Whitlow did have their best day as a group. The importance of the run, however, should not be dismissed.

"We ran the ball better, which if you run the ball, you can have some opportunities to hit some big play-action passes," Brown said.

The perception that UK's new system is about throwing the ball is wrong to begin with, but considering running back is arguably the deepest and most talented position on the offense, the ground game could become ever more vital.

Jonathan George and especially Raymond Sanders - the two seniors at the position - have consistently impressed throughout the spring and they did so again on Saturday. But it was another player - one who didn't dress once last season - who ripped off the biggest run of the scrimmage on a long touchdown that sounds vaguely similar to an 87-yard run he had back in 2011, at least based on the description of those who saw it.

"I thought Josh Clemons really stood out today," Brown said. "He had a couple of nice runs. That was encouraging. He hit one big run up the side."

The redshirt sophomore is still practicing only every other day as he tries to round back into form after missing a season and a half with a knee injury, but Clemons' confidence is growing by the carry.

"I'm feeling great," Clemons said. "I'm not really thinking about it anymore, just going out there and trying to get better and shake off those cobwebs from however long I was out."

Brown wasn't willing to say Clemons is back to 100 percent just yet, but it means something that he is beginning to feel like he is.

"That's the hardest thing with knees, is mentally," Brown said. "... And if he mentally is there, that's a huge, huge breaking point really. There's probably some things he can get better at, but I was big-time encouraged with him today."

Sanders and George, at least right now, might be better-suited for catching the ball - something backs will be consistently asked to do - but there's plenty of room for a bruising back like Clemons.

"Ray's shifty and probably a little bit better out of the backfield and motion-wise and some things, but Josh is a one-cut, downhill (runner)," Brown said. "He's a load to tackle, and (Dyshawn) Mobley is the same way. Those guys are hard, physical runners."

There was plenty to be positive about in the passing game as well.

Demarco Robinson overcame a stomach virus to give UK a consistent threat at wide receiver, while A.J. Legree came up with some important third-down catches and Rashad Cunningham made progress. Junior-college transfer Steven Borden had his best day of the spring at tight end, while Jordan Aumiller and Tyler Robinson made a couple plays of their own.

But a good day for the offense means the opposite for the defense. UK's line - the defense's most consistent unit this spring - had its moments, but the defense as a whole will need to respond just as the offense did on Saturday.

"The defense came hard last scrimmage, but I guess we held back and let the offense come back and put pressure on us," defensive end Za'Darius Smith said. "But we just gotta keep working, that's the main thing."

The good news is the Cats still have three practices and the spring game to do just that.

"We'll put the best product we can out there next Saturday," Stoops said. "We'll prepare hard this week. We've got a lot to get better at. We've got to make each practice count and each rep count to get better today, this week. And we'll do that."

Competition, according to every coach in America, is a good thing on the practice field.

It brings the best out of everyone involved and, when game day comes, assures that everyone will have worked for their spots.

For Kentucky's wide receivers at spring practice, competition is no issue. On any given day, there's no guessing which of the targets on the outside will look the best.

UK's coaches don't want to see the competition stop, but they'd like to see that latter trend end soon.

"We have a lot of guys kind of clumped together right now," wide receivers coach Tommy Mainord said. "I'm still looking for that guy to sort of take ownership of the position and say, 'Hey, this is mine.' "

Through 10 practices of spring ball, the player who has come the closest to grabbing hold of a starting position and not letting go is Demarco Robinson. The junior is UK's leading returning receiver with 28 catches for 297 yards in 2012 and has drawn the most consistent praise from Mark Stoops and the rest of the UK coaching staff. But even he is being asked to raise his game.

"Demarco, he needs to be a big-time player for us," offensive coordinator Neal Brown said. "This football team needs him to be a playmaker. And he's never been asked to be in that role, so it's a little bit different."

Robinson has never produced at the college level in that way, but Brown wouldn't be asking if he didn't believe Robinson could do it.

"He's a talented guy," Brown said. "He can run. He can stick his foot in the ground. He can get open. He understands the passing game."

For the rest of the receiving corps, understanding remains an obstacle.

In discussing the installation of Brown's fast-paced attack, the quarterbacks are the ones most often referred to as facing a significant learning curve. But as the weeks of spring practice wear on, it's becoming clear just how much is required of the wide outs.

In his post-practice comments, Stoops has singled out dropped passes as an issue among the wide receivers. As physical a problem as that may seem, its root is very much mental in the estimation of Mainord.

"A lot of it is head-spinning," Mainord said. "That's a lot of our guys. They're heads are spinning still. Maybe they're not grasping the offense as well; maybe they're not playing as fast as they need to play."

The coaches are doing everything they can on the practice field to address that, but they are very much limited by the NCAA rulebook. As much as Mainord and Brown would like to be on the practice field and in the film room with their players for hours on end, they are only allotted limited time. For that reason, it's on a young group of receivers that lacks a single senior to make up for that.

"You can't do it in the time we're allotted by the NCAA," Mainord said. "A lot of these guys gotta get in here and put some time into it on their own, get in there and study on their own on the computer. Everybody's a little bit independent, everybody's got different issues."

Mainord and Brown - who coached together at Texas Tech for the last three seasons - are giving their pupils the tools they need, starting with software that allows for detailed viewing of film of the Red Raider attack, one of the nation's most prolific over the last three years.

"They've got to be mature enough to get up there and do it," Mainord said. "They've got to get up there and do it on their own and say, 'Hey this is what I want to do and I want to be this great.' And some of them are doing that. Some of those guys are doing that; it just hasn't clicked yet. They'll get there."

In five starts last season, Daryl Collins showed flashes of the kind of skillset needed to excel in this new offense. He admits it hasn't been an easy transition, but now has an idea of the level of detail Brown is asking Collins and his teammates to grasp.

"Learning frontside and backside (routes) what you gotta do," Collins said. "You can't just know the frontside and on the backside because you'll mess up and you'll hear it from Coach Brown."

Along with DeMarcus Sweat, A.J. Legree and Rashad Cunningham, Collins is one of four sophomores looking to emerge in the new offense. The youth of the unit makes the growing pains understandable, but it hasn't diminished excitement over what they group will be able to do on opening day.

"We're very eager to get started," Collins said. "I can't wait for the first game to show out the new offense. They say it's the Air Raid, so that's pretty much what we're going to do: put the ball in the air."

True as that sentiment may be, it also ignores an aspect of Brown's offense that often goes unrecognized. Playing wide receiver at UK these days is about a lot more than running and catching and running some more.

"We ask them to block," Brown said. "We're asking these guys to be physical blockers. That's the thing that I was probably most proud of our guys last year at Texas Tech: Our wide outs, they punished people. If you watched us play or you talked to the people we played against, that's one of the first things they're going to talk about, how physical our receivers (were)."

According to Brown, UK's wide receivers and tight ends are "not even close" to where they need to be in terms of physical play. The coaches are demanding the Wildcats be much more willing to embrace the yeoman's work when it comes to blocking, and the same goes for pass catching.

"We need steady. ... We need guys to make routine plays," Brown said. "If they make a great one every once and awhile, that's fine, but I want guys that when the ball is thrown to them they catch it."

Believe it or not, Kentucky is coming down the home stretch of spring football. After the 10th practice of the Mark Stoops era on Friday, UK has just one scrimmage on Saturday and three practices next week before the spring game on April 13.

After a good Friday practice that featured plenty of situational work - including third downs and red zone - Stoops spoke for the first time on the format for the spring game. Plans are by no means finalized, but Stoops says he does expect to split the Wildcats up into teams and have a true scrimmage to encourage competitiveness.

"You know, you want to put on a good performance," Stoops said. "You want to look good for our fans and all of the excitement out there. So you want to make sure you go out there and execute."

As for Maxwell Smith, Patrick Towles and Jalen Whitlow - the three quarterbacks competing to start - they will split reps equally as they have throughout the spring and play for both teams. The first one to see the field will likely be determined by a coin flip.

All that, however, is subject to change, as full details will be announced later.

In the meantime, here are videos of Stoops and offense coordinator Neal Brown's post-practice comments on Friday.

Stoops



Brown

Mark Stoops has never been quite sure of what to expect at spring practice. There are times his team looks good and times it's clear just how work he and his staff have ahead of them. There are times when the defense has its way and others when the offense is more effective.

The one thing he has come to expect, however, is a general upward trend with the spring game just a week and a half away.

"I don't know if there's anything that just jumps out at me, but just seeing better plays," Stoops said. "We're not interested in one side winning the drill because the other side is totally inept. You're seeing some good football, more good football now on both sides."

After Wednesday's practice was encouraged as Stoops has sounded since practice began. He's always found more positives than negatives, but that balance is shifting more and more in the right direction.

It was another indoor practice - UK's seventh in nine sessions this spring. With temperatures climbing into the 50s in the afternoon, Stoops fielded questions about why the Wildcats worked indoors once again.

"The field's real cold in the morning," Stoops said. "We can't go in there when they're frosted. So by the time we get out and start our walkthroughs, get it going, the fields are still frozen."

It's not that it presents a problem - because Stoops has said repeatedly that UK gets done what it needs to in the Nutter Field House - but cold morning temperatures are another reason why Stoops will move fall practices to the afternoon. The primary reason is so that players will have ample time to rest.

"I think we can all act like they're going to go to bed at 9 or 10 o'clock like we need them to," Stoops said, "but to get them up very early in the morning all season long on that grind, when you're going every single day for a whole season, I don't know how much sleep they're getting."

But for the remainder of the spring, the Cats will stick to the morning. For the latest on UK's such practice, check out video interviews with Stoops and defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot below.

Stoops



Eliot