QUICK TAKES: South Carolina 35, Kentucky 13
In our regular postgame feature, the Cats Illustrated staff offers its first impressions from Kentucky’s 35-13 loss on Saturday night at South Carolina…
JEFF DRUMMOND:
I picked South Carolina to narrowly win this game, but I thought Kentucky would be in it late. Instead, the Wildcats got thoroughly embarrassed by a mediocre Gamecocks squad that entered the day having been outscored 60-27 by its first two league opponents. So Kentucky has now solidified its place as the worst team in the SEC, and that’s coming on a day when one of its colleagues lost 56-13 on its home field. To make matters worse, the “hard games” have not even begun for the Cats. There’s no two ways around it: this is bad football, and there’s no sign of it getting any better as the competition ramps up.
Kentucky looked to be in control after the first quarter, then experienced an all-systems meltdown in the decisive second quarter. Cutter Boley has a bright future as a quarterback, but this was a rude awakening for the redshirt freshman in his first road start. The play-calling did him no favors, and his decision-making was suspect, choosing to throw the ball into two or three defenders on multiple occasions. I suspect we will hear that the Cats need to “clean things up” and stop “beating ourselves,” but this has been a two- or three-year refrain that is now falling on deaf ears. Even with the (now dreaded) open-date week of practice, UK seldom seems to find answers. I’m an optimist at heart, but I see no path to six-plus wins and a salty fan base that’s getting more frustrated by the day.
JUSTIN ROWLAND:
Normally, we talk about how precarious the last four minutes of the half are for Mark Stoops teams. That has been a trend. The problem tonight was the entire second quarter felt that way. They went four consecutive drives with turnovers or turnovers on downs. South Carolina had 19 points off turnovers in the second quarter, and that more than accounted for the 28-10 halftime deficit. That’s a shame for Kentucky fans, too, because the offense came out of the gate looking great and running the ball well. We’ve seen South Carolina make some big explosive plays against Kentucky in that building before, but it has been a while since Kentucky routinely responded to adversity well, and once again tonight, the wheels came off.
It was a tough situation for Cutter Boley because he took a couple of hits out of nowhere and didn’t get a ton of help at times. But consider that South Carolina lost to Missouri and Vanderbilt by a combined 60-27 margin. Seth McGowan ran well and the line blocked well early in the game, but then the protection really struggled, and Boley took a bunch of sacks. In the second half, I thought they got conservative on a couple of plays and took a field goal when they really needed a touchdown in that situation. The interior of the line has played pretty well this year but the tackles have struggled in the two games against SEC teams, and the defense has been more leaky than we’re accustomed to seeing. Tonight, LaNorris Sellers was just obviously the most talented player on the field, so he was able to create great throwing opportunities to guys in open space, and it was the best he has run the ball all season. Kentucky doesn’t really do anything that jumps off the page at you right now, and they’re in a league where you need to be really good at multiple things to stay afloat. This was an ugly night that pretty much confirms Kentucky is currently in the cellar of the SEC.