Kentucky must get offense back on track in 'one-game season' at Louisville

The Kentucky offense hummed during the team’s three-game winning streak — particularly in the latter pair of victories vs. Florida and Tennessee Tech, Bush Hamdan‘s unit putting up 38 points and 401 total yards against the Gators and 42 points and 468 yards against the Golden Eagles. Cutter Boley led the charge with SEC Freshman of the Week honors following all three games as the Wildcats seemed to have finally found something on that side of the football.

And then the wheels fell off again in Nashville, falling behind 45-3 until a couple of garbage-time touchdown drives helped make the numbers look better than the reality. The Wildcats put together just 86 total yards in the first 43 minutes and change before finishing the game with just 43 non-sack rushing yards on 17 attempts. They had five three-and-outs in the first nine possessions.

The defense that had allowed 72 points and 991 total yards in back-to-back weeks looked like the ’85 Bears against this Kentucky offense, and Hamdan made no excuses after the fact.

“We just struggled to move the ball all night,” he said.

What went wrong? The second-year Kentucky OC said the Wildcats just couldn’t get their rhythm right from the opening kick and it all went downhill from there.

“I think it was pretty apparent, probably even halfway through the first quarter, we needed to use tempo. And we couldn’t,” Hamdan continued. “We couldn’t even get in a rhythm to get it going, to be quite honest with you. I just felt — hats off to Vanderbilt on the job they did, they posed a lot of issues. We got beaten in every facet.” 

The passing game finally took off at the end, allowing Boley to finish with 280 yards and two touchdowns through the air by the end — those numbers actually made him the first UK freshman quarterback since Jared Lorenzen to throw for as many yards in an SEC road game while also breaking his rookie record for SEC touchdowns on the year with 12. As for the running game, that just never got going.

Seth McGowan went for 27 yards on 10 carries while Dante Dowdell added essentially nothing with five yards on four carries. Jason Patterson matched that total on his lone attempt, also earning five yards.

What went wrong?

“Just, again, there were certainly a lot of looks, a lot of pressures into the run game,” the UK OC said. “Again, my number one thing — I had the feeling of the tempo and we had to get to the tempo, but we also had to get a first down and get some things going to get into the tempo. Every play, it was coming from the field, it was coming from the boundary. We just really were unable to get anything going.”

What Auburn did well in the near-upset against Vanderbilt in Nashville before the Commodores’ bye week, racking up 563 yards and 38 points in the loss, Kentucky did not. The Tigers wanted to get into a shootout while the Wildcats left their guns in Lexington.

“Certainly in the Auburn game, they were able to play fast and vanilla them up, if you will. That’s the biggest regret from tonight,” Hamdan continued. “I really felt we needed to do so, we needed to play faster. I initially thought we were going to be able to play and run the ball better and be more physical all across on the perimeter, but we just struggled to find the rhythm to even get some of the tempo going until later in the game. … It was exactly the game we did not want to play against those guys and it ended up happening.”

Now, it all comes down to the Louisville game, Kentucky’s performance on the road set to decide whether the Wildcats go bowling or not — and maybe what the future looks like in Lexington. To say it’s a massive opportunity would be an understatement, certainly with the Cardinals riding a three-game losing streak and coming off an abysmal 38-6 loss at SMU.

Their fans aren’t happy. Our fans aren’t happy. What’s going to happen? It won’t be good if the offense can’t get back on track in the Governor’s Cup.

“I think everybody knows — I mean, offensively, defensively, it doesn’t matter. Every week has a life of its own. We’ve been there before,” Hamdan said of the regular season finale. “We take those wins and the high highs, so we’ve got to deal with the low lows. We’ve got to come right back on Sunday, ready to go back to work and make it a one-game season for us. 

“This has been a group, a whole team that’s put their head down and stayed focused. I’ve got no doubt in my mind that this group will do so. It ultimately becomes a one-game season for us.”