QUICK TAKES: Kentucky 48, Eastern Michigan 23
In our regular postgame feature, the Cats Illustrated staff offers its first impressions from Kentucky’s 48-23 win over Eastern Michigan on Saturday night at Kroger Field…
JUSTIN ROWLAND:
It was a nice night for the offense, a good night for the special teams unit, and a bad night for the defense. You have to hope the defense just lacked its usual edge coming off a game against Ole Miss and playing Eastern Michigan. You don’t want that to ever be the case, but when you give up 461 yards to Eastern Michigan, that’s going to be a question. The pass defense has to improve.
But everyone is going to be talking about Cutter Boley, and understandably so. I thought he had a good game. He can really push the ball down the field, but I was most impressed that he had no turnovers and didn’t take any sacks. They have a good plan for involving the tight ends in the passing game this year.
With South Carolina looking so bad against Vanderbilt, that’s a game Kentucky really needs to win in a couple of weeks.
JEFF DRUMMOND:
The Good: Cutter Boley looked fantastic in his first starting assignment of the season. The redshirt freshman quarterback completed 12 of 21 passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns (with two others called back on penalties) and no turnovers. The most promising aspect of his performance was spreading the ball around and showing the ability to push the ball down the field. I loved how he used the tight ends, something we haven’t seen around here in an eternity. With UK running the ball so well (Seth McGowan 104 yards, 3 TDs) the threat of being able to take shots down the field will open up even more possibilities for the Cats.
The Bad: The Kentucky defense had been really impressive at times during the first two weeks of the season, but they took this game for granted tonight. The final stat sheet is ugly with a struggling EMU offense rolling up 461 yards of total offense and the same point total the Eagles posted against a bad FCS opponent last week. Granted, Mark Stoops and Brad White chose to substitute early and often, getting a long look at some backups, but they can’t be happy with this performance.
The Ugly: The Cats remain one of the worst teams on the planet in managing the “Middle 8,” i.e., the final four minutes of the second quarter and the first four minutes of the third quarter. UK held a commanding 28-6 lead with about 90 seconds left in the first half and somehow managed to go into halftime surrendering 10 additional points. The lack of aggression and indecision in these moments continues to haunt the Cats under Stoops. If that happens in an SEC game, you lose.