Freshman Snell’s big day doesn’t end the way he’d hoped

When Benny Snell hears opposing defensive players start jawing at each other, he knows things are going well.

“I hear them arguing and blaming it on one another but I’m just playing football, just keep moving,” Kentucky’s true freshman running back said after his 114 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries.

He definitely heard Georgia players turning on each other when he guided a late drive in what turned out to be a 27-24 loss to the Bulldogs.

On that drive, Snell also heard the 62,507 fans at Commonwealth Stadium chanting his name.

“Ben-ny! Ben-ny! Ben-ny!”

That was nice, he said.

“It made me feel real good, but I was still focused on getting in the end zone,” Snell said. UK’s drive stalled and it had to settle for a game-tying field goal instead.

Coach Mark Stoops was happy with the work UK got from the freshman, who coupled with Boom Williams, ran for 191 yards and three touchdowns.

“He has great heart and great toughness and maturity for a freshman, that’s for sure,” Stoops said of Snell, who broke Randall Cobb’s record for touchdowns by a freshman when he ran in his 10^th of the season from 1 yard out.

“We talked about it with Boom and with him and all of our guys that they were going to be tough yards today. We needed to grind them out and we did and we came up a little short.”

Georgia’s run defense, which came into the game ranked No. 13 nationally, did enough Saturday to slow Kentucky’s dynamic duo that had blasted Missouri a game before for 377 yards, the Cats’ most against a Southeastern Conference opponent since 1953.

During UK’s three-game win streak, it was averaging 299 yards a game on the ground.

But it couldn’t get those numbers Saturday night.

“They’re an extremely physical football team,” Georgia Coach Kirby Smart said of UK, which ran for more yards against the Bulldogs than any team this season. “They know how to run the ball and they run it really well.”

‘We have to cut them out’

It’s been talked to death, Kentucky’s turnover problems, but just when the Cats think they have them solved, they come back again.

It happened Saturday when UK had forced two turnovers in the first half and then coughed up the ball three times in the second half, losing two of them.

There was the Garrett Johnson fumble on his catch at midfield, straining to get yards. Then the bizarre play that saw junior wide receiver Jeff Badet juggle a deep ball into the hands of a Georgia defender.

Shortly thereafter, quarterback Stephen Johnson had yet another fumble, but was saved by senior center Jon Toth, who corralled it just in time.

“They do become contagious to some degree,” Johnson said. “We have to cut them out from our play definitely because with the rest of these games, we cannot have that at all. We’ve got really tough teams coming up. The real big thing will be turnovers for us.”

Kentucky is up to 22 turnovers, among the five most nationally, and they’ve turned into 86 points for UK opponents.

The fact that the mistakes Saturday happened in near succession was a killer for Kentucky, Stoops said.

“We put it on the ground three times and lose two in the second,” he said. “And that can’t happen because it was putting the defense in some bad spots. Those possessions really hurt.”

News and notes

Kentucky had seven tackles for loss in the game, which was the second-highest total of the season. Jordan Jones led the way for UK with 2.5 tackles for loss as part of his 10 tackles and forced fumble.

“He’s a good tackler. He’s learned a lot,” defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot said of the sophomore linebacker. “He’s made a lot of mistakes this season, but he’s learned a lot from his mistakes … He’s getting better every week.”

Jones has a team-leading 87 tackles this season, including eight for a loss. He has had 10 or more tackles in three games this season.

▪  Before the loss on Saturday, Kentucky had won 31 straight games when leading at the end of the third quarter and was unbeaten in the Stoops era when leading going into the fourth quarter.

This story was originally published November 6, 2016 at 1:57 AM with the headline "Freshman Snell’s big day doesn’t end the way he’d hoped."