Kentucky has a long way to go before challenging for anything in the SEC, but Mark Stoops does appear to have the Wildcats heading in the right direction. Quarterback Patrick Towles emerged as a strong contender for the starting job and has the eye of Stoops heading into the summer.
“I think you saw Patrick do some good things,” Stoops said after the scrimmage Saturday. “Patrick is improved, you saw him a year ago and you see him now, you see the improvement and I’m proud of that.”
Individual performance aside, it is what the rest of the offense seemed to do when Towles was under center that could end up being a big difference in the competition.
“I think we are better around him,” Stoops said. “I think when we have everybody healthy, all the quarterbacks will look better. So there’s no decision yet. I’m proud of the effort Pat has done and I really like the other two, as well.”
Stoops is not ready to decide on a winner just yet, nor should he. There is room for improvement at most positions at Kentucky, so taking as much time to evaluate all of the options is wise as Stoops looks to gradually make this program more competitive.
“We are going to go back and look at this tape and we’ll look at the spring in its entirety and look at all the drives and everything we’ve been through and we’ll sit down next week and see where we are at as a staff,” Stoops said.
The Wildcats also saw 35,117 fans come out for the spring game, a respectable number considering in-state rival and ACC member Louisville saw 27,500 attend the spring game earlier this month. The attendance figure puts Kentucky right in the middle fo the SEC in spring game attendance as well.