WATCH: Rich Scangarello, Will Levis on Kentucky's offensive woes

It was a brutal night for Kentucky’s offense, to say the least. The Cats only mustered six points and 98 passing yards against a Tennessee pass defense that ranked No. 130 out of the 131 teams in the FBS coming into tonight. Levis turned in his worst game as a Wildcat, finishing 16-27 for 98 yards and three interceptions.

What went wrong in the 44-6 loss? Offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello and Will Levis met with reporters after the game to try to talk through the offense’s performance. With his left shoulder bandaged up, Levis accepted plenty of the blame, specifically for his second interception towards the end of the third quarter.

Watch it all below or keep scrolling for a full transcript.

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Rich Scangarello

On how much Will Levis’ interception at the Tennessee 12-yard-line in the second quarter hurt…

“Again, that was exactly it. You churn out a long drive. I think the play before, the drive before, we had a third down call that we had a dropped ball on that could have been a big play and you drive down the field and you have a chance to stay within one score and you’re coming out with the ball in the second half and you let one get away down there. Those are the balls that can’t happen and when you squander possessions against a really good offense like they have, you’re putting your defense in a real bad spot.”

On Will Levis’ play…

“Until I watch it, we’ll see but I felt like — yeah, I feel like he’ll be honest with himself too and he’ll have to look at his game but you know, there’s gonna be a couple of plays that he’s going to truly feel he could have done better on and I don’t want to be critical of that until I watch the film and see the why. He definitely knows in his heart just talking to him that he feels like he left a lot out there but that’s all of us. It’s not just Will. That’s scheme, that’s players around him, that’s the situation. We all have to play better and coach better.”

On how much of the offense’s struggles are due to pass protection…

“It does impact things especially when you’re playing from behind at times. We’re doing a lot of things with tight ends to try and help in protection and quite honestly, they had a good plan for it and it does box you in at times but that’s not an excuse. When you’re playing our kind of game and you get into third and medium, you can be creative and find ways to get first downs and it hasn’t been a problem. We’ve been able to overcome that all year to some degree when Will’s in the game but tonight when we’re playing from behind and we’ve got some third and real longs, it does definitely make it difficult at times. But that’s not any one person, it happens sometimes but we’ve got to play better.”

On whether you can make schematic changes at this point in the season…

“The hard part for me personally is it felt like we had a really good bye week. We had three excellent — as three good of practices as we’ve had all year leading up to this game. If you had asked me walking into this game how I felt about things, I felt very good with where we were as far as our unity, our attitude, our execution, kind of where we were. Our confidence. It felt like coming off the Mississippi State game, we were trending the right way and then we let a couple of plays bleed into a bad half which bled into a bad game and you can’t let that dictate who you are. We have to let it go, flush it, and go put it together vs. Missouri and show what we’re capable of and be the team we were two weeks ago.”

Will Levis

On how deflating his interception was at Tennessee’s 12-yard line in the second quarter…

“That’s a big momentum changer. We score there, I think the game could be a lot different. That’s just football and things like that happen sometimes. It sucks.”

On Scangarello saying Kentucky had three good practices coming into the game…

“I just think we didn’t bring it today. We had a great week of practice. I felt extremely confident going into today. I thought we had really good energy. I thought we were ready and we weren’t. It’s just frustrating to think back and know that there’s at least a few plays that I could have done myself that could have changed the momentum of the game or made different decisions, different throws. It sucks but one game doesn’t define a program, doesn’t define a player. We’re just going to keep working.”

On what Tennessee’s defense was doing to be so effective…

“They were just playing some zones that were plugging up the holes of a lot of things we were trying to dial up. Credit to them for doing that but most of it was just shooting ourselves in the foot I think. For me, at least, the second and third intercepts, the second one was third and long, trying to squeeze in a ball I don’t need to in a game where we’re down by a lot. I just need to learn from that and then underthrow a go-ball, which, you can’t do that. Not so much what they did but what we did to ourselves.”

On if it feels like Kentucky is watching Tennessee have the season Kentucky was meant to have…

“No. I don’t really care. I’m just going to take it one game at a time and keep having the best season that we possibly can. It sucks that it’s not playing out the way that we wanted it to and props to Tennessee. They’re a great team and I hope they continue to play good football.”

On if he forced some throws…

“I think that the second interception was really the only throw that I forced. I think that’s definitely not a throw that I make if the game is any closer and I could have targeted a little better but that was the only throw, the last throw in my progression there, on third and ten. Just trying to make a play. It happens.”

On fixing the self-inflicted errors…

“They don’t just magically happen. It’s got to be the result of continued great practices, dialed-in execution. For me, when I’m shooting myself in the foot as a quarterback and killing drives by making poor decisions, poor throws, it’s just what I can do to go back and what I can learn from that and try not to make the same mistake twice. It’s frustrating. It sucks. That’s all I have to say.”

On preventing one loss from becoming two…

“Yeah, we made that a point of emphasis in the locker room. I think the last time we went down to Missouri, the year before I got here, it was a similar situation where we went down there and it was after a loss and we were kind of lulled to sleep and they beat them and we can’t let that happen again. And we’re just going to punch the clock tomorrow and do whatever we can during the week to get a good result next week.

On what he’s doing as a leader to make sure the team finishes the season strong…

“I talked to them afterward and I said, it’s bad to go out there and play the way that I did or the way that we did but it’s even worse to let that affect you further past tonight. My point of emphasis with the guys was to keep our heads up and it’s infectious when there’s a couple of guys pointing fingers and there’s a couple of guys down on themselves and down on others and other guys feel like it’s okay to start doing that and I just want to make sure that doesn’t happen. That we keep a good mindset and we finish the season as strong as we possibly can.”