Kentucky’s most impressive stat against Missouri was the one that barely existed.
Kentucky’s offense has racked up penalties this season. Many of them have been assessed to the big men up front.
At least seventeen, to be somewhat precise; that’s the amount of penalties assigned to offensive linemen over the course of Kentucky’s season through eight games. It’s possible there were a couple more, but 17 flags thrown were named to specific linemen across UK box scores this season (including penalties that were declined).
How many of those occurred against Missouri on Saturday night? Zero.
In fact, as far as penalties were concerned, Kentucky’s offense was almost perfect on Saturday; the lone flag it drew against the Tigers was a holding call against tight end Drew Schlegel on a fourth-and-1 punt with about half the fourth quarter left to play.
Before that, the offense’s cleanest night came at South Carolina, when it was flagged just twice: a false start assessed to Landon Young and an unassigned delay-of-game penalty. UK lost that game, 24-7, so obviously a lack of penalties isn’t an exact, one-to-one measure of an offense’s ability to put up points. But, it’s always good to avoid going backward, especially when the conditions are as tumultuous as they were at Georgia and over this past weekend.
The Cats didn’t fare so well in Athens: Counting one that was declined by Georgia, UK’s offense was flagged seven times, its second-highest total this season (it drew eight flags against Eastern Michigan). Keeping that at bay was a point of emphasis leading up to the bout with Mizzou.
“I’ve had penalty troubles myself, obviously,” said offensive lineman Logan Stenberg, a senior who’s drawn at least eight flags this year. “And across the offensive line, we’ve been jumping offsides, snap infractions and what-not. … Coach (Mark) Stoops talked to us all week. He said, ‘Just play clean. Play your game and we’re gonna win.’ We went out there, we did and we won. It’s a good recipe.”
Drake Jackson, a junior who’s started 28 consecutive games at center, said the offense is starting to realize its potential, and that it starts with not making dumb mistakes.
“It’s hard to stop us when we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, when we don’t have a third-and-5, we get a first down but it gets called back for a hold,” Jackson said. “If we can get rid of those, our offense can be totally different. We don’t have a lot of negative plays, and if we keep penalties out of the offense then we’re going to be efficient, we’re gonna move the chains and we’re gonna pop big plays because of that.”
Jackson echoed the sentiment of many in the Big Blue Nation when he evaluated the remaining games on UK’s schedule — Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Tennessee Martin and Louisville — and said the Cats have a “good chance” to win out.
Though, in light of the most recent outcome, his confidence level and that of the team’s might be just as high if the slate read: Alabama, Clemson, New England Patriots, ‘85 Bears.
“When we play our kind of football, we execute our job, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing,” Jackson said. “I know that sounds cliche, but it’s true.”
Next game
Tennessee at Kentucky
7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9 (SEC Network)
This story was originally published October 28, 2019 at 11:52 AM.
