Stock watch: Who’s rising, who’s falling after Kentucky football win over Youngstown State
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Game day: No. 9 Kentucky 31, Youngstown State 0
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Youngstown State football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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Three weeks into the 2022 season, Kentucky football is ranked in the top 10 nationally with hopes of winning the SEC East.
The 3-0 start to the season makes it easy to dream big on the Wildcats’ future, but Mark Stoops’ team has been far from perfect through the regular season’s first quarter.
Check out this stock report for a look at areas of concern and improvement through three games.
RISING
Deone Walker: Kentucky’s freshman defensive tackle made his first career start against Youngstown State. He backed up that decision by the UK coaches with three tackles, one half tackle for loss and one pass breakup. Walker was flagged for a roughing the passer on the first play of the second half, but overall the performance had to be considered a continuation of his early impact, highlighted most by an impressive third-down tackle for loss that helped clinch the win at Florida.
“That’s just Deone,” super senior linebacker DeAndre Square said of the Florida play. “I can’t wait to continue to watch him grow and make more plays like that.”
Chris Lewis: During the week there was lots of talk from offensive players and coaches about unleashing the Wildcats’ young track star wide receivers we had not seen yet. Both Dekel Crowdus and Jordan Anthony played against Youngstown State, but it was redshirt freshman Chris Lewis, more a physical threat than a speedster, who made the biggest impact.
Lewis recorded his first career catch on a 2-yard touchdown just before halftime. Will Levis attempted the same pass on a fade route to Lewis in the end zone later in the game but was unsuccessful. At 6-foot-4, 202 pounds, Lewis could emerge as a valuable red-zone weapon moving forward.
“That’s something he has to make and has worked to make a part of his game,” Levis said. “Just to be physical and go up and make those catches. He worked so hard with the strength staff this offseason to get faster, bigger, stronger.”
Third-down defense: Kentucky entered the game ranked 17th nationally in third-down defense, then stopped Youngstown State on all 10 of the Penguins third-down attempts. That performance rocked the Wildcats to fourth nationally (17.5%). Only two teams that have played three games have surrendered fewer than Kentucky’s seven third-down conversions allowed.
Saturday was Kentucky’s best third-down performance since stopping all 10 of Georgia’s third-down attempts in 2005. After stopping both of Youngstown State’s fourth-down attempts, Kentucky’s defense has stopped four of five fourth-down attempts in the last two games.
FALLING
Rushing offense: Perhaps the return of star running back Chris Rodriguez from a four-game suspension on Oct. 1 at Ole Miss will solve the Wildcats’ rushing woes, but it would be dangerous to assume one player alone could fix the problem.
Kentucky did top 100 rushing yards for the first time this season against Youngstown State thanks to two meaningless Dee Beckwith carries on the final drive, but Kentucky is averaging just 74.3 rushing yards per game, 125 fewer rushing yards per game than last season. Kentucky ranks 122nd of 131 teams in the country in rushing yards per game.
“I think we can throw the ball whenever we want, quite honestly,” offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello said. “For the most part, I think we can do that kind of stuff. We’ve got the receivers and the quarterback and the types of people to do it. I think the balance in the run game, that is our mission to get fixed. It has to get fixed, and we’ll get it fixed.”
Turnovers: With two interceptions against Youngstown State, Levis has now thrown four interceptions on the season. The interceptions were not nearly as worrisome for Kentucky coaches, though, as the Wildcats’ four fumbles against the Penguins. Only one of those fumbles was recovered by Youngstown State, but ball security will likely be a premium in the October stretch against Ole Miss, South Carolina, Mississippi State and Tennessee.
“We got to do a better job,” Stoops said. “And we coach that up, we work on it, we do drills. And we got to keep on emphasizing that.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
