Kentucky’s run game disappears in Athens: fewer than 50 yards

Kentucky’s offense arrived in Athens hoping to slow the tempo to a crawl, chew the clock, and lean on its run game, led by Seth McGowan and the SEC’s second-best yards-per-game average. But Georgia made it clear early: the Wildcats wouldn’t be running for chunks yards between the hedges. The rushing attack was stifled all day long in Sanford Stadium, and when the ground game failed, the offense never really stood a chance, despite a step forward by Cutter Boley in his second career road start at quarterback.

Built to run, the Wildcats rushed for only 45 total yards in the loss to the Bulldogs. McGowan was held to less than half of his season average, only 44 yards on 11 attempts against Georgia. Dante Dowdell ran for 1.3 yards per rush as the second option, neither getting anything going on Saturday. Kentucky did not have an explosive run of 10 yards or more in the game.

After the game, Stoops admitted that the running attack hit a wall. “We need explosive plays. We’re struggling with explosiveness,” he said in his postgame comments. The absence of chunk runs forced Kentucky into long down-and-distance situations, leaving Boley and an unproven wide receiver room to carry too much of the load against Georgia’s defense.

Georgia put a stop to it

Stoops also credited Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs for taking away the very thing Kentucky wanted to hang its hat on. He said in his final remarks at the press conference, “Georgia saw Seth and other backs and us having success (with the run). They know that. Coming into it, Kirby talks about it. He knows we want to be physical, he knows we want to run the ball to set up some pass, and they’re pretty good.”

When your strength is running the football and the opponent makes it disappear, there isn’t much left to lean on. That reality showed up in Kentucky’s final box score: fewer than 50 rushing yards, no explosive runs, and another SEC game with fewer than two offensive touchdowns.

On the bright side, Kentucky threw two touchdowns for the first time in an SEC game in nearly two calendar years.

McGowan dinged up

One of the reasons behind McGowan’s quiet afternoon was an injury he suffered in the second half in Athens. Kentucky’s transfer running back reaggravated an old leg injury, KSR learned after the game, but it shouldn’t linger into the return home to host Texas in two weeks.

Stoops said, “He just kind of re-aggravated it. We have the bye week coming up, so hopefully, he’ll get healthy.”

Some good news: it doesn’t sound like Seth McGowan’s injury is major