UK coaches should be glad they're not at Bama

Mark Story / Herald-Leader Sports Columnist

Poll every member of the college football coaches' association. Would even one say coaching football at Kentucky is better than working at Alabama?

Well, for reasons I'll explain, this week it is.

Three times in the past four seasons against hated Tennessee, Kentucky's final offensive possession of the fourth quarter has ended with the Wildcats inside the Volunteers' 10-yard line and needing a touchdown to win.

2006: Trailing 17-12, Kentucky had a 2nd-and-goal at the UT 3-yard line — yet failed to get a play called in from the sideline in a timely manner. The resulting delay-of-game penalty pushed the Cats back to the 8.

UK's attempt at a game-winning score petered out on the 6.

2007: Trailing 31-28, Andre Woodson drove UK to the Tennessee 2-yard-line. On 1st-and-goal, Rafael Little gained a yard. Kentucky had to take its final timeout with 8 seconds left.

On second down, Woodson and Keenan Burton just missed connecting on a game-winning TD. With only one second left, the Kentucky brain trust elected to kick a tying field goal rather than risking a shot at victory.

UK lost in four overtimes.

2009: Down 24-21, Kentucky moved from the UT 37 to the 10 behind four straight Randall Cobb runs from the Wildcat formation.

Kentucky took its second timeout with 1:16 left. Given time to plan, the Cats brain trust took Cobb out of the Wildcat and never got the ball into his hands again.

"That surprised me a little because Cobb was pretty effective," UT linebacker Rico McCoy said afterward. "That's where most of their yards came from. I guess they wanted to switch it up a little. That's cool. I won't complain."

UK again settled for a tying field goal; it again lost to Tennessee in overtime.

So against the team Cats fans most want to beat, two of those three late-game failures — 2006's delay of game and 2009's play calling — have directly involved Kentucky coaching.

If an Alabama staff had that track record over a four-game stretch against Auburn, would it survive?

Even here, where long, painful experience has tempered football expectations, Saturday has left a bit of a Bunsen burner beneath the seats of the UK coaching staff.

To get to post-game news conferences in Commonwealth Stadium, I walk down the ramps with the fans. I've never heard the fury that Saturday's defeat — and the decisions that led to it — evoked.

Tennessee deserved to win this season's game. The Vols dominated the second half along both lines of scrimmage and were the better team when it mattered.

Nevertheless, the football fates conspired to put Kentucky in position to win.

As theater, it couldn't have set up any better for UK. A Kentucky kid, Luke Stocker, who spurned the Cats for Tennessee, had the late fumble that put the Wildcats in position to win.

UK's best offensive player is a Tennessee product whom the Vols recruited too late and too halfheartedly.

Cobb being the person to end Tennessee's 24-game winning streak over Kentucky would have been almost poetic.

The most disappointing aspect about the Cats' embarrassing 25th straight loss to the Vols is not that the UK brain trust repeated the same mistake — not having the ball in Cobb's hands with the game on the line — that cost it in losses to South Carolina (the failed two-point try) and Mississippi State (the entire fourth quarter).

It was that Kentucky's late play calling showed no recognition for how the game Saturday was unfolding in real time.

In the second half, UK's conventional offense was an absolute clunker. True freshman quarterback Morgan Newton was clearly off.

Cobb initiating the offense from the Wildcat, whether he handed it off to Derrick Locke, threw it or ran it himself, was Kentucky's best (only) chance late in the game.

On several levels, what happened Saturday is a shame for Rich Brooks, Joker Phillips and staff. Before Tennessee, this season had been their best coaching effort at Kentucky.

With almost no down-field passing game and the attrition of vital players (think Jarmon, Hartline, Lindley) for various reasons, UK still managed to win seven games including victories at Georgia and Auburn.

Yet this third near-miss against Tennessee in four years — and the way it happened — leaves a real bad taste.

At Alabama, it's the kind of thing that could get a coach canned.

This week, Brooks and Co. should be thanking the ghost of Bear Bryant they work in Lexington, not Tuscaloosa.