Liam Coen Frustrated With Self-Inflicted Mistakes That Keep Stopping Cats

Kentucky fans are not the only ones frustrated with how the Wildcats finished Saturday’s game at Vanderbilt after building a 24-0  lead.

“This is a team game,” offensive coordinator Liam Coen said after the game. “It’s all about the team. Are we frustrated? Is it the standard? Yeah, but we are not going to be disappointed about winning on the road. That’s not going to happen.

“You go out and you score 45 points against a good team because the defense makes plays, the offense makes plays and the special teams make plays. We’re not going to apologize for that.”

Not apologizing but certainly admitting the offensive play after the fast start was frustrating is honest.

“The defense balled out,” Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary said. “That’s their standard, though. Those guys come off the field and regardless of what happens on offense they always tell us they’ve got our backs. To have that camaraderie all around, especially when the defense can kind of pick up the offense and vice versa, a lot of special things can happen.”

The UK offense needed the UK defense that got two interception returns for touchdowns by Maxwell Hairston, something no other UK player had ever done.

Kentucky was way, way out of sync on first down in the second half.

Kentucky had an incomplete pass, Ray Davis run for no gain, Leary dropped a snap and lost four yards, 3-yard pass, incomplete pass and Davis run for a loss of one yard on six consecutive first-down plays in the second half. That’s living in no man’s land, especially when UK plays better SEC teams.

“Pretty miserable. Pretty tough,” Coen said about those players. “It’s the same thing (we’ve been) preaching all week but, obviously, it didn’t show consistently throughout the day — that’s early-down success, early-down efficiency.”

Leary said the first-down problems have to be fixed and again said it started with him and he needed to be better. He’s never made excuses and always has blamed himself for UK’s offensive woes.

The Vandy stadium is a mess because of ongoing construction but Leary did not blame that for high throws or anything else on his part.

“Definitely was different, something I’ve never done before. But, in the moment, you don’t even realize it,” Leary said.

Coen is more concerned with how the UK offense keeps stopping itself.

“We’re just shooting ourselves directly in the foot,’” Coen said. “But overcoming all that is good. It is resilient. That was nice to see. That’s got to be an emphasis for us — to stop taking negative runs. It’s putting us behind the chains and making the game a lot harder for us.”