For the second straight week Kentucky could not score after reaching the one-yard line in Saturday's loss to Florida. (Vicky Graff Photo)
By LILIA SAXENA SMITHSON
NARPS (Non-Athletic Regular Persons), I could only bear to watch this Kentucky football game against Florida in short bits, so here are my takeaways (most of which hurt to relive):
Flashback to the first half: we are looking a touchdown in the eye, one yard away. Third down. Stopped. Fourth down, we go for it … stopped. Pain courses through me, soon replaced with rage. Florida gets the ball and moves it all the way down the field for its longest-season drive, finding the endzone.
It happens, it does … let’s stay positive, but then we have an interception by Florida leading to ANOTHER touchdown. At this point, it was their second touchdown caused by an interception.
REDEMPTION SEASON! Barion Brown makes a 99-yard kickoff return for a much-needed touchdown. BOOOOOM!
On a side note, one of my favorite parts of watching these games is the fans’ reactions. Thank you to every UK-committed traveler with the most iconic facial expressions. You make my day with your hands in the air, open-mouthed shock every time anything happens. Xoxo, Lilia.
Back to football: Going into the half, our defense had given up 300 yards when our first six-game average had been 250 for the entire four quarters. We were hurting, to say the least. Coach Mark Stoops must have had a come-to-Jesus with the team in the locker room during halftime because, for a minute, we came out swinging. After the half, we scored a touchdown on the first drive and brought it to a one-possession game at 20-27.
Our optimism died with the outright awful decision to give Florida its fourth touchdown — I am not typically a blame-the-refs gal, but this call had me frustrated. It didn’t look like anyone made it into the end zone, let alone the ball carrier, but I digress.
This final score of 20-48 was not our best work. I naively thought we had a run against this backup quarterback, but man, he knew how to play.
As my brother’s friend eloquently said, “Every year, we get our hopes up, and every year this happens.”
Hopefully, in these late fall games, our players prove many upset fans wrong. But Cats, don’t even fret; I, your favorite NARP, and I am always in your corner!
Auburn, Auburn, Auburn, don’t be deceived! We are coming for you on Saturday. Everybody
knows Wildcats are the superior feline!
Until next week, NARPS.
14 Responses
You’re new to this so you should pay attention to what your brothers friend said.
Over the years, UK has made a lot of backup and freshman QB’s look like Heisman candidates and not just under Stoops.
Remember when we played Louisville and they put the backup in from lexington. He completely destroyed us. He looked like tom Brady out there. On paper this looked like one of Stoops best teams. Especially the defense. If you really think about it we were duped into thinking that Brock V was a good quarterback and the offensive line had gotten better with experience. We had our 2 best wide receivers back. Plus our whole tight end room back. The 2 question marks were running back. Which to this point I think the running backs have been more consistent then the receivers. Besides Key no other receiver even looks decent. Beside 3 or 4 plays Barion Brown has been a disappointment. Maclin has been a even bigger disappointment. Brock is overrated. I see why they only let him run the ball at Georgia. He’s bad at making decisions. Its like he doesn’t know what to do run or pass? He holds the ball to long when he has time and in my opinion even when he does have time he looks confused. Like he doesn’t know what to do. Chip looked slower than DSK. I actually think DSK looks better running the football. Wilcox the best running back we have stays in Stoops dog house. He would be a great red zone weapon seeing that he has averaged over 11 ypc the last 2 games but has only had 6 carries over those 2 games. I think he had the best game of any running back when they actually fed him the rock. Brock is not the answer. Yes its hisfirst year starting and maybe he starts getting better, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I think we need to run with the Kentucky boy Gavin Wimsatt. He has 2 years starting experience and he looks more comfortable out there then Brock does. At this point in the season what would it hurt to start the backup? What happens if he’s the spark plug that we need and we find out too late? I think our record would be different if Gavin was the starting quarterback.
I doubt it Terry. You could have had Tom Brady in there and it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. The OLine is just not protecting or exploding off the snap. Now if Griff was given enough time to throw, much less make reads, and miss a lot, I buy what you’re saying.
I fully agree with you.
If he had SEC quality protection, then we could easily see whether or not he is capable of getting the done.
Brock is in the same situation as Tim Couch when he was the 1st NFL pick by Cleveland which did not have a decent OL and the inept owners/management never made changes needed to build one. Tim got hot over and iver
Stoops has CHEATED Wilcox, UK, the BBN and proven he is NOT qualified to be the HC by not playing Wilcox.
Stoops was slowly building a FB program at UK and then he quit, tried to run to TX A&M but he called that play wrong. They knew it was a “run” and he got sacked.
Has anyone told Stoops it’s ok to pass to a TE more than once in a blue moon? The TE group is much more dependable than any WR. The TEs don’t even put butter on their fingers.
Wilcox is the Reed Sheppard of the football team.
He’ll transfer and go on to greatness.
Yes he will and yes he is.
The fraud destroyed UK BB with pets
Stoops is destroying UK FB with his pet leaves. He did the same thing to “Boom” who was lightening when given the ball to run the outside instead of up the gut. When Boom’s sister was murdered, Stoops & his revolving OC door were clueless how to treat him. He would have stayed another year if Stoops had treated him right, according to a relative I met several months later.
Stoops is destroying UK FB with his pet PEAVES
The fraud destroyed UK BB with his PETS.
We can’t buy Stoops out.
Texas A&M was smart enough not to offer him their job.
If we can beat Auburn maybe they’ll want him.
Or, Mississippi State sucks so maybe they’ll go for Stoops.
If I were an NIL donor I would be demanding a refund. Return on investment is beyond pathetic. These players can and should be criticized, they are professionals now. Yes, Stoops in my opinion has been doing a bad job the past few years but the players are on the field and don’t seem to care. They got their money.
I don’t want to but I tend to agree with you David.
John Sumrall.
It looks like the game with Auburn will decide who gets to fight Mississippi for last place in the conference and we are paying $9 million for that?