Mark Stoops details areas to improve before Kentucky's SEC test against Ole Miss

Kentucky football left the field after their Week 1 game against Toledo with a lot of areas in mind to improve. The Wildcats struggled to find rhythm throughout the game on the offensive side, and it was the defensive side where fans came away with a lot of optimism. Kentucky's pass rush was on display quite well. Highlighted by Alex Afari Jr.'s nine solo tackles as well as Steven Soles Jr.'s two big sacks, the defense showed a lot of promise.

The offense, however, had a number of issues on display, looking a lot like Kentucky's offense from last season. The Wildcat offense struggled to get in a consistent rhythm for much of the game, especially in the passing game, as quarterback Zach Calzada struggled to connect with his wide recievers, including some key dropped passes and some overthrown as well. Kentucky will look to not only clean that up, but also the self-inflicted mistakes that were due to ball-security issues, most notably a fumbled catch by tight end Willie Rodriguez, that killed momentum that Kentucky earned on an offensive drive.

Mark Stoops knows they'll need to tighten up in those areas before the high-tempo and very efficient Ole Miss offense comes to town this weekend, which the Wildcats will need to keep up with.

"We know ball security is an issue, things we've got to improve on, is the ball security," Stoops said on Monday. "I felt like explosive plays we tried to push the ball down the field, I think we took five shots and didn't convert on any of those. That's something we have to improve on. We know we need to create some explosive plays. We did get two penalties on those, but again, I feel like we still have opportunities to go up and catch the ball and need to do that."

Stoops did mention that aside from those issues, there were other important bright spots, especially the offensive line, that blocked well and really opened up the run game. Kentucky finished with 206 yards on the ground between the two newcomer running backs Dante Dowdell and Seth McGowan. On defense, Kentucky's incredible pass-rush, as mentioned previously, really stole the show.

"We talked about toughness and improving the lines of scrimmage, definitely felt that Saturday and watched the film, felt the same way. We definitely improved, ran the ball for 225 yards and limited them to 60 (rushing yards), so that was important. The discipline aspect, penalties, really improved there. The one and only offensive penalty we had was the first play of the game, but reined it in after that, did not have another offensive penalty the rest of the game. I thought our operation was very smooth. We worked very hard throughout the summer, just with the operation, just the signals, the cadence, we went on ‘two’ several times. We got a big jump late in the game by them, so our cadence was very good and the discipline was good. We were very effective on short yardage. Again, point of emphasis that we fell short a year ago, so it's good to get those things improved."

Kentucky has some areas that need improvement, especially offensively, but they're certainly very fixable, and Stoops knows they will work hard to fix them as fast as they can, especially with the schedule being as tough as it is.