Kentucky Football: Drew Barker Won't Be Ready By Mississippi State Game

Kentucky football head coach Mark Stoops doesn’t expect Drew Barker to be ready by the game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

The Kentucky football program is three victories away from making a bowl game for the first time since 2010. It’s also four losses away from missing out on a bowl game for the sixth consecutive season.

For at least one more game, the Kentucky Wildcats will be relying upon backup quarterback Stephen Johnson to shoulder the workload.

Johnson did an exceptional job against the New Mexico State Aggies, but has since encountered trouble. He’s thrown for a combined 273 yards over a three-game span, which comes out to 91.0 per game.

According to Jon Hale of The Courier-Journal, head coach Mark Stoops doesn’t expect Barker to be ready for the Mississippi State game.

“He’s in there getting rehab so we’ll see how it goes in the next week or two,” Stoops said. “I think he is getting better but we have been cautious with him and hopefully we can continue to do that and hopefully he’ll feel stronger and stronger…There hasn’t been anything that’s changed. Let’s put it that way. He’s still week-to-week. We have no plans of playing him in the Mississippi State game. After that we’ll evaluate him week-to-week.”

In other words, it’s still Johnson’s offense to run.

Barker opened the season in tremendous form. He completed 15 of 24 passes for 343 yards and four touchdowns in a duel with NFL prospect Nick Mullens and the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles.

Barker was just 2-of-10 for 10 yards and three interceptions against the Florida Gators, however, and was 1-of-2 for one yard and an interception against New Mexico State.

Though Barker hasn’t been much better than Johnson, there is hope that he can come back and revitalize the passing attack. Neither player is guaranteed to succeed in doing so, but healthy competition often pushes players to improve.

That’s exactly what Kentucky needs at this current juncture.

Unfortunately, Barker won’t be back for at least one more week.