Jamarion Wilcox ran for 102 yards, his first 100-yard game at UK. (Vicky Graff Photo)
This was not supposed to be a season where playing close or beating the point spread was the expectation for Kentucky. It was not supposed to be a year where a moral victory was better than getting routed even if it was still a loss.
Yet that’s the feeling one has after UK’s 28-18 loss at Tennessee Saturday night.
The Cats came into the game banged up missing a number of key starters out with injuries but yet rolled up 166 yards in the first quarter. That’s more than the Cats have had in any quarter this season. Kentucky got the early lead and still had a 10-7 lead at halftime despite being stopped inside the 5-yard line again on its first drive with no points.
The second half two offensive turnovers led to two Tennessee touchdowns that changed the game. Quarterback Brock Vandagriff was blindsided and fumbled deep in UK territory before he was knocked out of the game with a head injury. Backup quarterback Gavin Wimsatt threw an interception in Tennessee territory that was returned to the UK 10-yard line. Tennessee went a total of 38 yards on the two scoring drives to take a 21-10 lead and that was just more than the Cats could overcome.
Sure, Kentucky played harder than it had seemed to do the three previous weeks against Vanderbilt, Florida and Auburn — all losses. But don’t forget that the Vols helped by missing three field goals and dropping what would have been three touchdown passes. Tennessee still rolled up 476 total yards and averaged 5.8 yards per play. The Vols also converted seven of 14 third down plays and its only fourth down try.
“It was a tremendous effort and they did not let it get ugly but it comes down to an opportunity missed,” said Tom Leach on the UK Radio Network. “Kentucky just got too many self-inflicted wounds. Tonight was a missed opportunity to do something memorable. Kentucky played hard but did not execute well.”
It’s been that kind of season that leaves UK 3-6 with three games left after a bye week — home with Murray, at Texas and home with Louisville, which won at Clemson Saturday night. Kentucky should beat Murray but 4-8 certainly looks like a probable ending for a team some felt could win nine games going into the season.
Even coach Mark Stoops seems to have accepted the limitations his team has.
“It has been a really tough stretch,” said Stoops, who recently lost his mother and was at her funeral in Ohio on Monday. “I love and appreciate our players for the attitude and grit they showed.
“The outcome is not what we wanted but sometimes the outcome is the outcome. For me it is how they prep, play and fight.”
Again, not the sentiment most expected going into this season considering Stoops and his coaching staff believed this was the most talented and deepest team the coach has had at Kentucky.
Certainly Kentucky was missing key players. Linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson played amazingly well with 14 tackles, including seven solo stops and one tackle for loss. He even forced a fumble. Redshirt freshman running back Jamarion Wilcox broke a 50-yard run to open the game and had his first 100-yard game with 102 yard on 17 carries.
Ja’Mori Maclin, expected to be a big-play receiver, finally got a chance to show what he could do and hauled in a a 32-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter.
However, it was not enough.
“We believe we can play with anybody. We were definitely ready to go. I could see it all week. Guys practiced very well,” defensive back Zion Childress, who had eight tackles, said on the UK Radio Network. “We wanted to win the game on defense. We know if we dominate the game we definitely have a chance to win and that’s what we wanted to do. It was just one of those nights.”
Again, it was one of “those nights” that UK has had way too often this disappointing season.
10 Responses
They definitely played with guts doesn’t appear to always be the case.
We get 2 weeks to heal up and play Murray State which should be a win, but who knows with this team. A win in Austin is unlikely, but again, who knows with this team. Have we developed enough pride and belief that we own Louisville? That’s the game that will most likely determine if we go bowling this year. I feel for Stoops with the loss of his mother, but this season unraveled long before that. Getting any kind of bowl game and a 7th win would keep Stoops job safe. A 4 win season would call for a change.
On a positive note, basketball season opens on Monday night! I hope Williams will be able to play, even a little. It would be nice to see us play at full strength against Duke.
I think Louisville is going to win this year..But like you said hard telling. They are an enigma and we’re even when healthy.
I was gratified about how hard the Cats played for 31/2 quarters. We just didn’t have enough, well you name it, starters, blockers, receivers, line backers, safety’s, QB’s. I hope Griff is ok. That was a nasty hit he took. TN is loaded with talent but some it borders on unsportsmanlike behavior. But still it’s college football and it comes with the game. Lousy officiating doesn’t however. I thought the officiating crew did a very lousy job, at best, with both sideline player interference and game management. The SEC office has got to do something about the officiating.
A conservative coach doesn’t take the 3 points on the first drive of the game on the road? You always stack points early especially on the road. If we would have kicked that field goal we would have been down by a touchdown and we wouldn’t have abandoned the run which is clearly our bread and butter. Wilcox actually gets 17 carries and what’s he do with 17 carries? Well he’s the first 100 yard rusher this season.? Who does he get these 100 yards on? Hmmm Tennessee the best rushing defense in college football. What this tells me is against other teams if he would have gotten more carries we would have gotten more yards. Another thing passing the ball on 3rd and 4th down when we threw the interception on 4th down and and a short 4 yards. Why didn’t they fake the pass on 3rd down and have Wimsatt scramble for a couple yards each time? Instead we throw a fame ending interception. We did play much better than we have the last 3-4 weeks. Another thing that killed us was costly penalties. Making 3rd downs much harder. I would play all 3 quarterbacks against Murray state maybe giving each quarterback a quarter and whoever plays the best gets the 4th quarter. The play Brock got hurt on the guy ran right between 2 offensive lineman who both turned there head when they seem him bull rushing ahead. One thing I don’t understand is the first drive we looked great. The drive we hit Kattus who was acting like a tackle. But why not run slants or streaks and hit more people over the middle? The defense was playing man to man and what do we do? Still run long routes while the quarterback has no time to wait for it. When Brown went out it hurt us badly because he was actually playing his best game of the year when he got hurt. At this point I’m starting to think with all the injuries the team has quit. Well even if they haven’t quit they have far less superior talent now with all the injuries. Our best bet is to play all the backups against Murray state. Let all the starters rest 2 weeks so we cam hopefully get most of the starters back by then. Most of the injuries are people banged up most aren’t too serious. We should rest everyone against Murray then play Texas with more of a full cupboard and go all in against Texas trick plays. Take chances by blitzing you have to shake things up to beat a team as good as texas. We played Georgia good and Georgia beat Texas. We need all of our players against Texas and we will still get beat by a couple of touchdowns. Lol. Louisville just beat Clemson and is playing great football like your supposed to at the end of the year. I say we go 4-8. I think Louisville has to much offense and we have a banged up defense. But I would definitely go all in against texas. Lost to Texas who cares about the Louisville game. Beat Texas and Louisville seems not as hard as they do now.
This offense has just thrown away one of the best defenses in the country. If the offense could have learned how to score and not throw interceptions, this season would have been a lot different. I’m not saying score 50 points a game. If this team could just have been more consistent in moving the ball; not so many 3 and outs, where the defense could have gotten a rest, 21-24 points a game would have won a lot of games.
The Cats overall did play a much more inspired game than they have in most of the season, but I think it still shows that Stoops still doesn’t have complete "buy-in" from many on the team and perhaps coaching staff as well. Lack of consistency is still the achilles heel of this team and focus and discipline still very elusive
late in the season. The OL did show some improvement in 1st half at least. The injury list is almost incomprehensible and the Heart of some still has to be questioned. A special shout-out though to Wilcox, DSK, Maclin on offense and the 2 studs on defense. I still am very down on Stoops being able to lead this team going forward and even more so now after hearing that he publicly announced his support of current VP yesterday…not sure why he had to mention anyone.
Has it been lost on everyone but me that Shannon Dawson is the OC of highest scoring team in college football (46+ pts per game)? But not good enough to coach at KY…….
RJohn, you just dug up a golden nugget which was buried so fast by Stoops that I did not remember his name!
The OC graveyard for talented OC’s is in a Kroger outdoor market. Neal Brown, Dawson, Gran, Coen – all of these have impressive OC track records except when being held down- not thrown under, but locked down under the bus by Stoops
Stoops’ revolving OC door is also open clueless OC’s – Hamdan & “complex schemes” Rich Scangarello (just fired as QB coach by Las Vegas Raiders after 9 games)
Everyone has valid points in this thread! When Stoops write his Memoir “How Not to be th HC” he should include an addendum with 100’s of comments made in threads on VV. There are so many poor decisions, poor game management, almost never using TE in the passing game even though it is a successful choice, and much more!