Cats Had No Chance Trying To Play Catch Up Against Alabama

Vicky Graff Photo

Kentucky never had a chance against Alabama.

Sure the final score Saturday was 49-21 but the game was never that close really. Alabama had 21 points on three Jalen Milroe touchdown passes less than 10 minutes into the game and that was it in Saturday’s matchup.

Alabama played like the No. 8 team in the country and dominated the Cats who had only 253 yards of total offense and 74 of those yards came on a run by backup running back Ramon Jefferson. The rest of the game UK had 49 yards rushing on 23 carries — just over 2.0 yards per carry.

Quarterback Devin Leary was 17 of 31 passing but only for 158 yards and one score.

“Anytime you play a team like that and you hurt yourselves early on you’re playing catch up,” Leary said. “I’ve said, they’re a very well coached team and have a ton of athletes out there and we knew that it was going to be a challenge.

“We put ourselves in a bad position early on. You can’t do that against a team like Alabama.”

Leary didn’t hide his disappointment over UK’s play.

“It sucks to lose. It’s definitely tough. Every time I step on the field my main goal is to win for my brothers. Walking away from the field and having that outcome is tough for me but I’m still going to be resilient, I’m still going to come back watch the film and get better and I’m still going to attack every practice like it’s my last,” Leary said.

“We will bounce back from this.”

But will they? Kentucky has now lost four of its last five games to drop to 6-4 with games left at South Carolina and Louisville. Sure, they are winnable games but they are also both very losable games with the way UK has played recently.

Georgia and Alabama both gave UK a butt-kicking in a season where the Cats openly talked about challenging for a SEC Eastern Division title.
 
“I think in both games, early on, you see us have so many self-inflicted wounds, whether we’re hurting ourselves with penalties or me making a decision to throw the ball, just anything. It feels like we’re constantly playing catch up,” Leary said.

“Honestly, playing a team like Alabama or Georgia, if you are in catch up mode it does feel like it’s getting out of hand because those are good football teams and that’s what they pride themselves on. So I wouldn’t say it’s too much about us not being able to get up for a big game, but we need to be better.”

Not just better but way better and this year Kentucky just could not do that.