Kentucky Football: Fall Camp Begins Monday

WINTER WORKOUTS✔️ SPRING FOOTBALL✔️ SUMMER WORKOUTS✔️ FALL CAMP

— Rashad Cunningham (@8_selfmade_1) August 3, 2014

Monday morning at 0600 the Kentucky football team officially opens fall camp. The red tape that is the months December through July has been cut, and football season is upon us. Just in time. Mark Stoops, DJ Elliot, and Neal Brown ran out of new things to say to the media a while ago. Over-analyzing practice reports seems like paradise compared to the last few months. 27 days...

Heading into spring practice we touched on a few story lines. Some of them have been addressed, but other continue to linger. Leadership and off-season conditioning have been satisfactorily answered thus far, but other questions persist. Briefly, a wish list for fall camp:

Quarterback

I don't know if you've heard, but UK continues to look for a starting quarterback. I'm largely agnostic on who wins the job, but I hope the individual is named as early as possible. Hopefully the starting QB can work with the first team offense for at least two weeks to give the offense time to get comfortable with itself prior to Week One.

Offensive tackle

There is needed depth at offensive tackle. In camp I hope senior Teven Eatmon-Nared wins the "swing tackle" appointment.  Hopefully redshirt freshman Kyle Meadows has another year to develop, and true freshman Josh Krok can keep his redshirt on. Krok was the largest human being in CWS during the spring game not suited in a helmet and pads, but he would benefit from a redshirt season on the practice squad refining technique. Meadows and Krok are UK's right and left tackle (respectively, I judge) of the future not present.

Linebacker

A star linebacker must emerge and assume the mantle of Wesley Woodyard, Danny Trevathan, and Avery Williamson. Those players were not highly-rated and yet by their sophomore or junior years established themselves. Who's up? Khalid Henderson has the most experience while TraVaughn Paschal, Josh Forrest, and Ryan Flannigan are other candidates.  If it's by committee that'll be just fine too.

Great defenses have a star player at all three layers: defensive line, linebacker, and secondary. UK has Bud Dupree on the defensive line, and if it can get an "85 or more tackles this season" linebacker, then it stands a solid chance at being dramatically improved from last season. A break-out player in the secondary would be welcomed too.

Public Relations

To placate fans and media, the football team will hold several open practices during camp. When that happens I hope we get similar reports to the open practices held in the spring.

No Injuries

Pretty obvious.

Those wishes are just a few. For a team coming off a 2-10 season there are many more, no doubt. I'm more interested in what your wish list is for fall camp. Thoughts?