Vanderbilt's defense overwhelmed Kentucky with pressure

Vanderbilt went back to the drawing board in their final bye week of the season after allowing 72 points and a bunch of yards in consecutive games against Texas and Auburn. The solution was having a pressure-heavy defense lean into more pressure.

That plan worked to perfection against Kentucky.

Vandy finished Saturday’s 45-17 win with seven tackles for loss and seven QB hurries in 68 snaps. The Commodores logged an impressive 25 percent havoc rate in the win. Kentucky did not handle the pressure well at all. Vandy brought heat constantly. The Cats were not ready for it.

“We didn’t handle the movement very well. They definitely brought some pressures. We knew that going into it. They do a nice job of mixing things up,” Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said about Vandy’s defense. “They hold their looks really good. They were bringing them on the snap on some. We just — we didn’t play very good.”

Kentucky finished the game with just 43 non-sack rushing yards on 17 attempts. The Wildcats could not find balance, were constantly in second-and-long, and was unable to get into tempo due to the inability to move the chains. UK had five three-and-outs in the first nine possessions of the game. Vandy had the Cats all out of sorts.

“Every play it was coming from the field,” Kentucky offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan said. “It was coming from the boundary. We were just really unable to get anything going.”

“There were nickel pressures, there were corner pressures on every single play. We weren’t able to take advantage of that. Like we said earlier, with some of the cheap yards. I think when we look back at it, there were opportunities on the perimeter.”

Kentucky was unable to get accurate pre-snap reads on the pressures and then constantly weren’t ready to attack them once the ball was snapped. There were even moments when UK shifted to max protection when the offense anticipated a pressure only to see Vandy drop into a coverage-heavy look. The Wildcats were not prepared for what Vandy did on defense in the blowout loss.

Vandy’s post-snap movement led to some wins in the run game and a rattled process for Kentucky in the dropback passing game. UK was unable to get into its game plan because drives were ending so quickly. The Cats got got by Vandy’s defense. A potential advantage (Kentucky’s passing game vs. Vandy’s pass defense) was flipped around due to Vandy’s executed game play

“It was exactly the game we did not want to play against those guys,” Hamdan said.