No excuses for Cats after lack of offense leads to 21-0 Music City Bowl loss

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His star quarterback (Will Levis), running back (Chris Rodriguez) and cornerback (Carrington Valentine) all opted out of the Music City Bowl to start preparing for the NFL draft. His star linebacker (DeAndre Square) and one of his top tight ends (Josh Kattus) were injured and did not play.

Yet Kentucky coach Mark Stoops was not about to make excuses after his team lost 21-0 to Iowa Saturday to snap the nation’s longest active non-conference winning streak at 20 games, which included bowl wins the previous four years.

“No excuses. Mark Stoops does not care when we play or what the circumstances are. We are going to compete to win,” the UK coach said after Saturday’s loss in Nashville when UK was shut out for the first time since a 21-0 loss to Georgina on Oct. 19, 2019. “We fell short and that’s on me.”

Despite the final score, don’t blame the UK defense. The Cats gave up only 206 yards — Iowa’s top two quarterbacks did not play — and the Hawkeyes were 0-for-11 on third down conversions and 0-for-2 on fourth down tries.

However, UK freshman quarterback Destin Wade threw two first-half interceptions that Iowa returned for touchdowns in his first start. He was 16 of 30 passing for 98 yards in the game but could never direct any kind of sustained drive in part because UK rushed for only 67 yards on 32 carries against an Iowa defense that dominated the line of scrimmage.

“It is a little bit deceiving. You look at the total stats on our defense and say how can you lose,” Stoops said. “We were really good defensively and that does get lost in the shuffle (because of the final score). I am really proud of how they played and thought they played well. We stoned them pretty good.”

Problem was that Iowa “stoned” UK even better. Wade did get close on a couple of deep shots to receiver Barion Brown but the Cats were never in the red zone because Iowa dominated special teams play.

“We couldn’t connect. Just fractions off,” Stoops said. “We tried to get the ball down the field but came up short.”

It seemed like almost every UK drive also started deep in Kentucky territory, including three times inside the 10-yard line.

Kentucky’s one bad defensive series was a two-play, 42-yard scoring drive by Iowa in the second quarter.

“Field position ultimately caught up with us,” Stoops said.

Wade, who is from the Nashville area, made his first start. Obviously, UK coaches were hoping his running ability would help the offense but he had only 29 yards on 16 carries and most of that came on a 19-yard run with UK down 21-0 in the second half.

Stoops said UK’s offensive issues were not all on Wade.

“He gave us some mobility. He has a lot of poise and gave us some plays with his legs,” the UK coach said. “It’s hard to play against a defense like that. He will get better with more reps.”

Redshirt freshman Kaiya Sheron started at quarterback when UK lost to South Carolina when Levis was hurt. Stoops didn’t play him. Instead, he went to Deuce Hogan, an Iowa transfer, on the final series when he completed six of seven passes for only 19 yards.

Stoops indicated during a halftime TV interview on ABC-TV that he probably was not going to change quarterbacks in the second half and really did not elaborate after the game on his postgame radio show on why Sheron did not play.

“I thought Deuce looked decent in there. I felt I could have gone to Kaiya or Deuce a series or two earlier,” Stoops said.

Could have? Then why not do it. Kentucky was down 21-0 at halftime, so what could it have hurt. Sheron had played a whole game against a SEC defense while Wade had not played all season. Stoops said he wanted to see how Wade “rallied” the team down 21-0 but the decision making still seemed strange. That’s not blaming Wade, either, because other than Dane Key there was not a receiver who made a tough, physical catch and seldom was there a significant hole for a running back to hit.

It was just a disappointing end to a 7-6 season that everyone expected to be much, much better. However, think back to when Stoops arrive. A 7-6 finish and bowl game might have been the ceiling for UK football. Now that same year is a disappointment, so that’s long-term progress.

Stoops said he had nothing “negative” to say about players who chose not to play in the bowl game or decided to transfer. He said he loved them all along with players who did play.

“Now we have to hit reset on this team. I have things to do. That motivates and excites me to get some of these things fixed,” he said. “We were a different team from Louisville until now. No excuses and we just have to get things reset for next year.”