Chris Rodriguez ran for 125 yards and one score Saturday. (Vicky Graff Photo)
With the fireworks in Kentucky’s passing game Saturday it was easy not to pay a lot of attention to running back Chris Rodriguez in the 45-10 win over ULM. He still ran for 125 yards and one touchdown on 19 carries, an average of over six yards per carry, and had the seventh 100-yard rushing game of his career. It was the best single-game rushing performance by any UK player in the opening game of a season since BennySnell had 125 yards in 2018 against Central Michigan.
It also gives Rodriguez 1,486 career yards and moves the junior in 23rd place on UK’s rushing list but he’s going to climb a lot higher before the season ends.
ULM coach Terry Bowden said even if Kentucky doesn’t “just run it down your throat” just the worry that UK might forces teams to concentrate on the run that leaves a lot of one-on-one pass coverage that UK exposed.
Rodriguez liked what he saw from the offense.
“I felt like it was good. I feel like we still have some work to do on offense as a unit,” he said.
Kentucky has a new offensive coordinator and new offensive line coach but Rodriguez said the offensive line was as good as ever.
“They did great. Me and them dudes, they see something we didn’t see during film, came to the sideline, alright let’s get it correct. Got it correct with Coach, and the rest is history,” he said. “But you know next week it is back to business. I mean we are going to prepare the same we did for this week and fix up everything.”
Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said the running game would still be a “staple” of UK’s offense even though quarterback Will Levis threw for four touchdowns and completed three passes over 50 yards.
“One doesn’t work without the other. You have to have the balance and the physicality. With Chris you saw some amazing individual efforts by him today and you saw the line blocking very well at times and there’s things we’ve got to get cleaned up in that area too, but you’ve got to have the physical presence,” Stoops said.
“It was good to work on the pass game and blend it with the run game because again in this offense you’ve got to have the balance you’re looking for.”
2 Responses
"ULM coach Terry Bowden said even if Kentucky doesn’t “just run it down your throat” just the worry that UK might forces teams to concentrate on the run that leaves a lot of one-on-one pass coverage that UK exposed."
This quote by Bowden tells the story about yesterday’s offensive showing. Next week, I expect Missouri to try to stop the run without sacrificing the one on one pass coverage that ULM chose yesterday.
If this thing is going to be effective moving forward, the O Line and Rodriguez will have to win the battle up front, and the passing game will have to find open receivers under the deep coverage.
MIssouri is the next game, which makes Missouri the most important game on this schedule, at least until it is over. I believe UK and Missouri are very close in strength, with UK have a very slight advantage over the Tigers. I believe this is likely to be decided by less than a TD either way. If UK can put up 35 or more points on Missouri, then my high expectations for this season will move up a notch or two.
Missouri is huge game Professor