Georgia slams the door on Kentucky’s dreams of an SEC East title
There had been much talk this season about knocking down doors at Kentucky.
And while the Cats have burst through their fair share of them already this season, a win over No. 6 Georgia was a one-ton vault with a code that ninth-ranked Kentucky just couldn’t crack.
“At times we got outmanned,” UK Coach Mark Stoops said. “We missed more tackles than I could remember. Didn’t execute a few things. But you’ve got to give them credit.”
Credit Georgia that on a day when Kentucky had a Kroger Field-record crowd of 63,543 fans ready to witness history and see the Cats advance to their first Southeastern Conference championship game, the Bulldogs did what they always do.
They advanced back to the title game with a 34-17 win where they ran all over what has been a dominant Kentucky defense all season.
“It’s huge. It hasn’t been easy and it’s never easy,” Georgia Coach Kirby Smart of his team going to two straight SEC title games by racking up 331 rushing yards, more than any other UK opponent this season.
“Sometimes I think people get spoiled when you win and these are good programs and teams. I give our kids a lot of credit because their backs were against the wall two weeks in a row and they came out fighting, scratching and clawing.”
The Bulldogs (8-1, 6-1 SEC) did it behind running backs D’Andre Swift and Elijah Holyfield.
The duo ran for a combined 271 yards and three touchdowns against a Kentucky run defense that came into the game allowing just 108.5 yards per contest. Swift led the way with 156 yards and two scores on 16 carries.
Quarterback Jake Fromm completed 14 of 20 passes for 113 yards and a 4-yard touchdown pass to tight end Isaac Nauta that put the Bulldogs on the board first, 7-0, early in the first quarter.
Nauta’s score capped a quick, four-play drive that was set up by a 65-yard punt return by Mecole Hardman.
“That obviously is not good,” Stoops said of the miscues on punt return. “We need to do a better job. We had worked hard with their punt return. We know how electric he was, and we really wanted to put that — we wanted to place that better.”
Kentucky’s defense helped set up the first score of the game when senior Josh Allen pounced on a high snap turned fumble to Fromm. UK went 50 yards downfield in 15 plays, but the drive stalled thanks to familiar foes: a penalty and a sack of Terry Wilson, one of four in the loss.
So the Cats had to settle for a 34-yard field goal from Chance Poore to make it 7-3 Georgia with eight minutes left in the first half.
Swift extended the Bulldogs’ lead to 14-3 with 2:28 left before the break with his 20-yard touchdown run where he made at least one UK defender whiff. Two others failed to bring him down.
“They just found a weakness in the defense and they were just going with it,” Allen said.
The Cats got lucky at the end of the first half when another bobbled snap ended up with Allen on top of it at the UK 29-yard line. UK ran time out of the first half with one 3-yard play and then went back to the locker room to regroup.
Allen, who had come into the game with a league-best 10 sacks this season, was held to just three tackles for Kentucky (7-2, 5-2).
“You gotta stop the run to earn the right to stop the passer and we didn’t do a good enough job stopping the run,” said defensive coordinator Matt House, whose group yielded 444 total yards, its most this season.
Senior safety Mike Edwards led UK with 11 tackles. Davonte Robinson added nine tackles, including one for loss. Jordan Jones, despite playing with a broken hand, also had nine tackles.
Holyfield added a 4-yard touchdown run and Swift had an 83-yarder to give the Bulldogs a 28-3 lead midway through the third quarter.
A few minutes later, Benny Snell added a 9-yard touchdown run of his own, which put him over 1,000 yards for the season. The junior running back is the first player in UK history to run for 1,000 or more yards in three seasons.
“I’m happy. I’m very happy, but I’m not at the same time,” Snell said after the loss. “It’s a great stat, but I like winning.”
Snell ended the night with 20 carries for 73 yards and a touchdown. Wilson completed 23 of 29 passes for 226 yards and a quirky touchdown to A.J. Rose with nine minutes to play.
Next up for Kentucky is a game at Tennessee where the Cats will be without leading tackler Darius West for the first half after the senior safety was ejected for targeting.
Another ejected UK player, offensive lineman Bunchy Stallings, will be able to play the full game at Tennessee despite being tossed in the second half for grabbing an official.
The team can’t let one loss snowball into more.
This loss hurt a little more because of what was on the line and what was left behind the locked door, Stoops said.
“We invested a lot, and I understand that,” the head coach said. “But we can’t (let) this loss turn into two. So we have to get back to work.”
Next game
No. 9 Kentucky at Tennessee
Saturday (Time and TV TBA)
This story was originally published November 3, 2018 at 8:53 PM.