Ad Disclosure
That thudding noise heard nationally around 8 p.m. Saturday was Kentucky football hitting the ground. After a week in which at least 1 national prognosticator projected the Wildcats for a berth in the Sugar Bowl over Alabama, reality’s name for UK was the Georgia Bulldogs.
There’s losing, and there’s losing 51-13, as UK did Saturday. While Georgia has now bested UK in the past 14 matchups in the series, recent years have featured scores like 27-24, 14-3, 30-13 and 16-6. The last time Georgia blasted UK by a margin this wide was a win over a 2-10 Kentucky team in Mark Stoops’ 1st season in Lexington.
So yes, those (admittedly overblown) hopes of a New Year’s 6 bowl or a CFP berth are certainly long gone. Kentucky’s task now will be making sure that Saturday’s loss is just a 1-game outlier, not a sign of struggles to come that could turn a 5-0 start into a 6-6 or 7-5 season.
Player of the Week: Ray Davis
It was a far cry from last week, when Davis rushed for 280 yards in a massive home victory. But the senior back was one of the few Wildcats who didn’t seem completely overwhelmed by the matchup with Georgia. Davis’s 15 carries for 59 yards weren’t record-breaking, but between those yards and his 36 yards receiving, including a 26-yard TD reception, he accounted for 52 percent of UK’s total offensive production.
Kentucky’s final rushing numbers were deflated by 28 yards lost on sacks, but the ground game actually wasn’t a point of struggle for UK. Given the issues inherent in UK’s passing game, Davis figures to continue as likely the most important player in the offense.
Freshman of the Week: Ty Bryant, defensive back
Again, it’s worth noting that Stoops prefers not to use freshmen. But Bryant, who is a legacy player at UK, continues to see time as a reserve in the secondary as a true frosh. Given the issues in defending Georgia’s passing game, it might not be surprising if Bryant sees more action moving forward. He did have 2 tackles Saturday in the 4th quarter.
Biggest concern: Total systems failure
Georgia was, to parrot the phrase, who everyone thought they were. The Bulldogs didn’t get to be the nation’s top team by rolling over in big games. But this UGA team had edged past South Carolina by 10 points and bested Auburn by a single score. Given Kentucky’s sticky defense and impressive performance against Florida, there was reason to think UK would at least hang with the Dawgs.
But pretty much everything UK did came up wrong. A pair of offensive drives were set back by massive penalties. An open touchdown pass was overthrown by QB Devin Leary. A useless personal foul penalty turned a 4th down for UGA on its own 15-yard line into a 1st down. Kentucky allowed 600 yards, failed to gain 200 yards and was thoroughly dominated in every phase of the game. A loss — given the UGA +15 betting line — was not unexpected. A humiliation was.
Developing trend: Passing game struggles
Leary’s 10-for-26 line for 128 passing yards was another brutal performance for the struggling Kentucky quarterback. In 3 games of SEC play, Leary has completed 52, 47 and 38 percent of his passes. He has also managed to average 7.1, 3.6 and 4.9 yards per attempt. Not only aren’t these good numbers, they’re just not consistent with what Leary’s past performance at NC State would have suggested.
With the Wolfpack, Leary failed to complete more than half his passes just twice in his last 3 seasons. He didn’t have a single sub-5-yards-per-attempt game during that same time frame.
Yes, Kentucky’s passing issues often reflect an inconsistent wide receiver group that drops more than its fair share of passes. But Leary has missed numerous open throws, and he seems to insist on throwing short passes with too much heat and often a step behind his targets. Whether the issue is physical or mental, after half a season in Lexington, Leary simply hasn’t been the player he was — or the player he was expected to be. His ceiling is probably the team’s ceiling in the 2nd half of the season.
Key stat: 608-183
That’s total yardage from Saturday’s beatdown. The last time UK gave up 600 yards? In 2013 vs. Georgia with that 2-10 team noted above. The last regular-season game in which UK failed to gain 200 yards? That was a 2020 beatdown from Alabama. The last time UK did both? That was in 2013 against Alabama.
So what’s the takeaway? This is the kind of beatdown that only an elite team can deliver. And the last time UK was on the business end of a game like this was with a 2-10 team full of players who would have been more suited to the FCS Ohio Valley Conference than the Southeastern Conference.
Kentucky tends to have 1 game a season when it plays like it snoozed through the pregame wakeup call. But when that no-show came against Georgia, well, it got ugly.
First impression about Missouri: Ah, more pass defense
As a reward for watching Carson Beck throw for 389 yards, mostly against air, Kentucky next draws Missouri’s pass-happy offense. Mizzou did lose to LSU on Saturday, but it had little to do with the passing game, which led the team to 39 points by racking up 411 yards against a struggling LSU secondary.
Honestly, with Missouri getting gashed on the ground by LSU, this game suddenly looks like a team that runs well (Kentucky) against a team that doesn’t defend the run very well (Missouri allowed 274 yards on the ground to LSU), and a team that passes well (Missouri passes for 322 yards per game) against a team that doesn’t defend the pass very well (Kentucky’s above-noted gashing from Georgia).
But the other odd thing here is that Mizzou had defended the run very well — in fact, had led the SEC in rushing defense heading into the LSU game. Meanwhile, Kentucky had been one of the league’s better pass defenses before Georgia shredded it.
So maybe the question here is will the real versions of Mizzou and Kentucky stand up? Surely Kentucky isn’t that bad. But also, surely Missouri isn’t going to give up 49 points again. Something’s got to give, and the team that escapes next weekend’s showdown in Lexington at 6-1 still has some significant bowl possibilities lurking.
Joe Cox is a columnist for Saturday Down South. He has also written or assisted in writing five books, and his most recent, Almost Perfect (a study of baseball pitchers’ near-miss attempts at perfect games), is available on Amazon or at many local bookstores.
