What Kentucky football’s loss to South Carolina means for rest of season, SEC East race
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Game day: South Carolina 24, No. 13 Kentucky 14
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s Kentucky-South Carolina football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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Kentucky football fell to 4-2 on the 2022 season with a 24-14 loss to South Carolina on Saturday.
Here is a closer look at what the loss means beyond the scoreboard.
SEC EAST HOPES ON LIFE SUPPORT
Kentucky players made it clear this summer the goal for 2022 was to reach the SEC championship game in Atlanta. Even after a loss at Ole Miss last week, that goal was still within reach, especially considering defending national champion Georgia has looked vulnerable in recent weeks.
The loss to South Carolina means Kentucky no longer controls its own destiny in the division race. To have any hope of reaching Atlanta, Kentucky essentially has to win the rest of its SEC games and hope for Tennessee and Georgia to drop at least one other conference game each. Even in that scenario, Florida and South Carolina would also have to be considered factors in the race again, too.
Maybe Associated Press Top 25 voters take into account Kentucky was playing without star quarterback Will Levis against the Gamecocks, but the defeat is still likely to drop the Wildcats out of the top 20. If Levis returns and Kentucky makes a run, the College Football Playoff committee will surely take his absence into effect when crafting the ranking that will determine which teams play in the New Year’s Six bowls.
Rankings will have nothing to do with the SEC standings, though. Saturday was likely the night Kentucky’s hopes of winning the East ended.
A NEW ERA OF THE KENTUCKY-SOUTH CAROLINA SERIES
The victory gave South Carolina a 19-14-1 record all-time against Kentucky, but the series has been characterized by extended periods of dominance by one team. From 2000 to 2013, South Carolina won 13 of 14. From 2014 to 2021, Kentucky won 7 of 8.
South Carolina coach Shane Beamer is now 1-1 against the Wildcats. It might be dangerous to put too much stock in Saturday’s outcome for the future of the series since Kentucky was running a limited offense without Levis, but Beamer and company can now make the case that the period of Kentucky’s dominance in the rivalry is finished.
The fact that South Carolina fans can now push back at the summer controversy resulting from Mark Stoops’ comments in an SEC Network interview that were perceived as a shot at Beamer only adds insult to injury.
“It’s easy to change a climate. You just change a uniform, talk a little game, dance around, put on some stupid sunglasses,” Stoops told the “Marty & McGee Show” in July just days after South Carolina’s football Twitter account posted a hype video with Beamer donning a pair of sunglasses and dancing. “You can change a climate, but to change a culture is at the core. And I’m quite certain we changed our culture.”
Stoops has denied that comment had anything to do with Beamer. Regardless of the intent, South Carolina’s first win in Lexington since 2012 gives Beamer more momentum into proving he can build a culture that will challenge Kentucky’s spot above South Carolina in the SEC East pecking order moving forward.
A CONCERNING TREND CONTINUES
Yes, Levis’ absence has to be accounted for when discussing the outcome of the game, but it does not change the fact that Kentucky has struggled in bouncing back from high-profile losses throughout the Stoops era. Maybe UK would have rebounded from a frustrating loss at Ole Miss last week if Levis had been available, but all we know for sure is the Wildcats have now two consecutive games at least once in every season Stoops was coach.
A year ago, Kentucky won its first six games before losing to No. 1 Georgia with the eyes of the college football world pointed at it for ESPN’s “College GameDay” in Athens. A path to a New Year’s Six bowl still existed for Kentucky after that loss, but the Georgia loss spiraled into a three-game losing streak with subsequent losses to Mississippi State and Tennessee.
A similar scenario played out in 2018 when Kentucky started 7-1 before losing to Georgia in a winner-take-all game for the SEC East. A week later, the Wildcats posted their worst performance of the season in a 24-7 loss to a Tennessee team that finished the year with a 5-7 record. Players later attributed that performance to a hangover effect from the Georgia loss.
Kentucky’s sloppy start to the game with a fumble on the opening play, more special teams miscues and multiple dropped passes adds to that narrative.
Levis was not the only key player injured Saturday — linebacker Jacquez Jones and right tackle Jeremy Flax were also absent — but if Kentucky is a legitimate SEC contender, it should have enough talent to still beat a rebuilding South Carolina program at home. Maybe Kentucky wasn’t a legitimate SEC contender. Or maybe the inability to quickly bounce back from a disappointing loss is at play again.
This story was originally published October 8, 2022 at 10:55 PM.
