Zach Calzada didn't have much to say following second straight no-show at Kentucky

The counting stats were better, but the eye test was worse. There wasn’t much to love about Kentucky‘s passing attack with Zach Calzada under center against Toledo, throwing for just 85 yards on 10/23 overall with a pick, but it came in a win and there was enough positive elsewhere to look past it. Then came the Ole Miss loss, the seventh-year quarterback putting up 149 yards on 15/30 overall with no interceptions — but 44 of those yards came on a single throw to an uncovered Ja’Mori Maclin thanks to a cornerback blitz, and Calzada ultimately exited with a shoulder injury in the fourth quarter.

Nothing before the deep ball inspired much confidence, nor did anything after. The boo birds at Kroger Field wanted to see Cutter Boley whether or not the original starter was healthy. The move was inevitable, by the sound of things, with Mark Stoops making it clear the position would be reevaluated either way.

“I think Cutter deserves the opportunity,” he said.

It comes at a good time with Eastern Michigan coming to Lexington next weekend, the Wildcats given a 95.3 percent chance to win that one, according to ESPN’s Matchup Predictor. The Eagles have lost back-to-back games to open the season against Texas State and Long Island. If there was ever a time to break in a new quarterback to pad stats and build some early confidence as the permanent starter moving forward, it’s now.

As momentum shifts toward the future over the now, how is Calzada holding up? Well, about as expected, unfortunately. He’s in physical pain, but he’s also understandably down about his own play — and likely benching.

“Not great,” he said after the loss. “It was my shoulder, I’m just gonna take it day by day.”

Calzada underwent season-ending shoulder surgery ahead of his redshirt sophomore season at Auburn, an injury that kept him from ever playing a snap on the Plains. Fortunately, it’s not the same shoulder this time around, so that’s not a concern of his.

Either way, it was too much to get back out there in the final minutes, if there was a call to be made about his status as the guy at all.

“It’s the other one, so it’s different. Just trying to get back out on the field was my number one thing,” Calzada said. “I was upset that I couldn’t, but it is what it is.”

As for what went wrong when he was on the field, some of the key issues came down to communication, unable to hear the plays as they came in from the staff due to technical difficulties with the headsets.

It’s not an excuse, but when he was visibly confused and frustrated late in the first half, that was why. Between those hiccups and everything else, the missed opportunities stacked up.

“Too many, to say the least. It’s got to get fixed,” he said. “There were a couple of times we had some communication issues, whether it was technological or anything else. We’ll get it fixed.”

The Kentucky coaches said that whether the receivers were wide-open or the throws would be easy, “the plays were there” for Calzada to be successful. He was pressing and it made the guy brought in to be a savvy vet look like a panicked, inexperienced newcomer.

That’s just not gonna work — not with a guy as talented as Boley sitting behind him and waiting his turn.

“Yeah, definitely,” he said of his own misfires and slow processing. “I was looking for plays I could have made that I didn’t make. No matter whatever the difficulty is, no matter how far it is, no matter how small the window, if there’s an opportunity to make it,  I think I can make it.”

The upside is what Kentucky showed in that scoring drive with Maclin’s deep ball, leading to a Seth McGowan touchdown run. That was the vision he had for his offense entering the season.

“Yeah, it did (feel good). I felt really good after that drive,” he said. “I think that it showed our ability to, first of all, get explosive plays, but also capitalize off those.”

The floor is — well, everything else we saw with the passing game on Saturday, unfortunately. What’s missing there?

“I’m gonna go watch the film. I don’t know,” Calzada said.

The answers are few and far between both on and off the field.