Practice Report | Stoops pleased with effort

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Highlights from Thursday’s Kentucky football practice:

News of the day: Despite back-to-back blowout losses, UK coach Mark Stoops said he was pleased with his team’s effort and performance in practice this week. “Guys have had a good attitude, worked hard, and just trying to put together the best game plan we can to go play a good football game,” Stoops said. He acknowledged some coaches say publicly their teams are practicing well even when they know the opposite is true, but he promised that is not the case this week. “I think you know enough about me now that I wear certain emotions on my sleeves,” he said. “I do tell the team and I tell you the truth on how I feel. If I felt like it was a cruddy week of preparation or if the enthusiasm, the energy wasn’t there I’d tell you.”

Injury update: Stoops confirmed UK will be without sophomore running back Stanley “Boom” Williams (elbow), senior wide receiver Joey Herrick (bone bruise) and redshirt freshman safety Darius West (ankle) at Georgia.

Booth talk: The move of Kentucky defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot to the coaches’ booth in the press box against Tennessee has generated discussion this week, but that’s not the only location switch the UK staff has recently considered.

“Offensively, all of our guys are on the sidelines, and I brought that up and talked with (offensive coordinator) Shannon (Dawson) several times,” Stoops said. “That’s the way the staffs he’s been with have always done it. I’m making sure that’s what they want to do because I want to make sure we’re getting a good vision of the entire picture.”

Asked if he was trying to encourage Dawson to move an assistant to the booth, Stoops made sure to note it was just a discussion.

“If I wanted to encourage him, I would tell him to do it,” Stoops said with a laugh. “Just making sure that we’re rethinking that and putting people in position to be successful, our players and our coaches, and so like I said, we’ve talked about it twice and we’ll leave it the way it is right now.”

For Eliot, the move to the booth represents a chance to provide additional perspective with a better view of the entire field. It also lets defensive backs coach Derrick Ansley, who had previously coached from the box, interact one-on-one with Kentucky’s young defensive backs.

QB Roulette: Georgia has yet to name a starting quarterback for Saturday’s game, but Stoops says the decision will not affect the game plan much one way or the other.

“Really doesn’t effect us much at all,” he said. “They do what they do. Their identity is with their offense and with their offensive coordinator. I don’t think things change much. Maybe internally as far as experience and things like that, but it’s nothing that jumps out at you that’s systematically much different.”

Email Jon Hale atjahale@courier-journal.com. Follow him on Twitter@JonHale_CJ.