Kentucky responds after Mizzou letdown, but Georgia highlights warts
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Game day: Georgia 14, Kentucky 3
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Georgia football game at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky.
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Georgia brought one of the top defenses in the country to Lexington on Saturday.
Its counterpart on the Kentucky side, for the most part, matched its intensity but the Wildcats for the fourth straight game were held under 300 total yards on offense and fell an 11th straight year to the Bulldogs, 14-3, on Saturday.
They weren’t as stuck in the mud as they were at Missouri, but Kentucky averaged just 3.6 yards on 64 plays. Its inability to get separation down field and the pressure brought against first-time starter Joey Gatewood combined to scare away any chance of an upset win on Halloween.
Case in point: When it needed to drive 90 yards with 9:03 left, trailing by 11, Kentucky managed only to get as far as its own 48-yard line in about four minutes of game time. A penalty backed it up further on that decisive drive, which ended in a turnover on downs. The Cats kept Georgia from putting an exclamation point on the board, but their final offensive drive, and the game, ended at their 20 after they stopped Georgia at the 23 with 1:45 to play.
“We were backed up a little bit there,” head coach Mark Stoops said of the Cats’ penultimate drive. “After the first down, we were picking it up and trying to get the ball down the field, absolutely. It wasn’t happening. They’re well-coached, they’re not stupid. They know and they were taking it away. … They were taking those shots away.”
Stoops throughout his postgame availability talked about getting into “predictable pass” sets being a challenge against Georgia’s defense. The numbers bore that out: Gatewood threw 25 times, but only had 15 completions for 91 yards. He was sacked four times and hurried on four other occasions. Five of his incompletions were the result of breakups by Georgia defenders, three of them by star safety Richard LeCounte.
Gatewood’s debut didn’t draw rave reviews, but Stoops was not anticipating a stellar showing from any quarterback who took the turf Saturday.
“You know going into it it’s gonna be a tough day,” Stoops said. “Any quarterback that goes into playing Georgia, you know there’s gonna be some good and some bad cause they’re going to create some havoc in there with the way they can rush. … I think there were certain opportunities there that we’re gonna look at and wish we could do ‘em over, have a little regret on some reads. But overall he did some good things. There’s a lot to build on there with him, for sure.”
Kentucky for the third time held an opponent under 20 points this year but it for the second straight week allowed an opponent to convert more than 50 percent of its third and fourth downs (Georgia was 5-for-9 on third-down tries and 1-for-2 on fourth-down attempts).
After an 86-yard, 12-play drive featuring no pass attempts put the Bulldogs up 7-0 with a little less than 10 minutes left in the first quarter, Georgia generated just 260 yards the rest of the way. That seven-point lead proved to be all it needed, though it added insurance on a seven-play, 75-yard possession to open the second half; the Bulldogs’ lone fourth-down conversion came on a 22-yard scoring run by Zamir White, who finished with his first 100-yard career rushing day.
“There’s a lot we can improve on (defensively),” Stoops said. “There were some frustrating drives and aggravating yards in there that we could have played a heck of a lot better. …
“But as a team, as you know, we’re way beyond any kind of moral wins and losses. We’re practicing and playing to win. I am appreciative of the team, the mentality that they had all week. They’ve really worked exceptionally hard. We weren’t proud of just the overall product a week ago and they did respond.”
Notes
▪ Chris Rodriguez was the Cats’ biggest bright spot on offense. The sophomore finished with 108 yards on 20 carries. Thirty-nine of his yards came on the Wildcats’ only scoring drive, capped by a 34-yard field-goal from Matt Ruffolo late in the second quarter.
▪ Center Drake Jackson wore a No. 65 jersey in honor of offensive line coach John Schlarman, who was absent a second straight week. Schlarman, who’s battling a rare form of cancer, wore No. 65 as a player at Kentucky from 1994 to 1997.
▪ The 11-point margin of defeat was Kentucky’s narrowest against Georgia since a 27-24 loss in 2016. That is the only single-digit loss to the Bulldogs during Stoops’ tenure.
▪ Four significant UK players down the stretch suffered injuries. Starting left guard Kenneth Horsey had a knee issue while Luke Fortner (starting right guard), DeAndre Square (starting inside linebacker) and Cedric Dort (a reserve defensive back) all came up with ankle problems. “We’ll see how bad they are later on tonight and tomorrow,” Stoops said. “Hopefully, they won’t be out too long. I’m not sure at this point.”
▪ Stoops was non-committal on whether Gatewood would start against Vanderbilt in two weeks if senior Terry Wilson is healthy. Wilson, who started UK’s five games, was unavailable Saturday due to a wrist injury suffered at Missouri. “I haven’t watched any film at all, so we’ll wait and make those decisions,” Stoops said.
Next game
Vanderbilt at Kentucky
Saturday, Nov. 14 (time and TV to be announced)
This story was originally published October 31, 2020 at 5:21 PM.
