UK Athletics Photo
As soon as Matt Ruffolo missed the extra point in overtime most long-time Kentucky football fans knew what was coming. The Cats scored to take a 41-35 lead over Ole Miss Saturday in Lexington before the Rebels got the ball. But just as many UK fans feared, Ole Miss not only scored a touchdown but also made the extra point to beat UK 42-41 and drop the Cats to 0-2.
Obviously, it’s easy to blame Ruffolo for the loss just like it was to blame officials for a blown call at Auburn in week one when UK also lost. However, junior linebacker Josh Paschal says blaming Ruffolo is not fair — and he’s right.
“The mood was to just not let everything be on Ruffolo (after he missed). You know, he missed the extra point, but it is a team sport. He missed the extra point, but as a defense we have to back him up,” Paschal said.
“Unfortunately, the game at the end didn’t go our way and we didn’t execute how we should have. We can’t blame it on Ruffolo because at the end of the day there are 100,000 different plays you could blame somebody on.
“As far as that goes, our mindset was to back Ruffolo up. He missed the extra point but we said we were going to get out there and stop them and support our brother.”
Kentucky didn’t and now the Cats are 0-2 in a season when many thought UK could win at least six games and maybe seven or eight even playing a 10-game SEC schedule. That’s not going to happen.
A bitterly disappointed Mark Stoops wanted no part of criticizing Ruffolo when the game ended probably because he knew kicker might be the least of UK’s worries even with this critical miss.
“We’ll continue to work both guys,” Stoops said when asked if he would open the competition back up with Chance Poore. “We’ll continue to work Matt. We’ll work Chance. If we feel like Chance gives us a better opportunity, then we’ll go with him.”
My guess is that UK will go with Poore, who lost the job to Ruffolo midway of last season, against Mississippi State Saturday night. However, if the Cats don’t clean up a lot of other parts of their play, it won’t matter who is kicking.
