Kentucky football’s offense has been defined by its inconsistency as season nears an end
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Game day: South Carolina 17, Kentucky 14
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-South Carolina football game at Columbia, S.C.
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It would not be accurate to say the 2023 Kentucky football Wildcats lack an offensive identity.
Now 11 games into a season after another disappointing performance in a 17-14 loss at South Carolina, it is not the inconsistency that is preventing Kentucky from clicking. It’s the inconsistency that defines this offense.
“Defense did plenty in order for us to win this game,” offensive coordinator Liam Coen said. “We’ve got to dig deep. I don’t have all the answers right now. I wish I did, but this one is on us. We have to be able to score more points than 14 and give our defense a real chance to breathe a little bit there. That’s 100% on us, on me.”
This was not supposed to be the story when Mark Stoops lured Coen back to Lexington from the Los Angeles Rams then signed Devin Leary as the top-ranked quarterback in the transfer portal.
Combining Coen and Leary with an exciting group of young receivers was supposed to be the formula for building on the 2021 success found during Coen’s previous season in Lexington. Instead, many of the same issues that cost Rich Scangarello his job as offensive coordinator a year ago have carried over into part two of the Coen era.
Leary has failed to live up to his offseason hype. The sophomore receivers did not make the jump from promising talents to reliable playmakers. While the offensive line has improved some from its disastrous 2022 season, Kentucky’s once reliable run game has largely disappeared in the second half.
“Just terribly inconsistent,” Stoops said.
South Carolina entered the weekend ranked 106th nationally in total defense (413.6 yards per game) and 93rd in scoring defense (28.6 points per game) but held Kentucky to 293 yards and 14 points.
Three promising drives were ending by turnovers, including one interception in the end zone and a fumble on the first play of a drive that started near midfield with just more than two minutes remaining.
“We didn’t feel like they were really stopping us in the first half,” Coen said. “Just kind of self-inflicted wounds, which I guess is even more frustrating.”
Perhaps most troubling is there is no guarantee the struggles of this season will lead to improvement in the future.
Kentucky will almost certainly have to replace Leary and starting running back Ray Davis. Multiple starters on the offensive line could leave. Wide receiver Tayvion Robinson has no eligibility remaining.
Perhaps Kentucky’s sophomore pass catchers use their 2023 struggles as fuel for future growth, but Coen and company will have to largely start building the offense with another gaggle of transfer portal additions. With the schedule only getting more difficult in the new-look SEC, the implications of the 2023 inconsistency feel like they reach further than just one season.
Stoops opened his post-South Carolina news conference by acknowledging the loss was one of the tougher defeats to swallow during his time as Kentucky’s coach.
“I just felt like we had our opportunities and it just didn’t happen,” he said.
Upsetting archrival Louisville next week would at least send the program into the transfer portal season on a high note, but it is difficult to imagine the version of Kentucky on display in Columbia scoring enough points to knock off the Cardinals no matter how weak Louisville’s ACC schedule has been.
It is past time to stop expecting the offense to find the type of complete-game performance it has lacked this season. Maybe enough elements click to upset Louisville or win a bowl game, but that does not change the importance of Stoops, Coen and the rest of the offense finding answers to avoid the same issues next season.
“I didn’t feel like, man, we can’t run it or, man, we can’t throw it tonight,” Coen said. “I didn’t really feel that way. It was just, man, we do something really good in the run game and then we’d go minus-1 again. We would have a really nice throw-and-catch and then we’d maybe get a ball tipped again.
“Just zero consistency when it comes to operating. That’s really disappointing.”
Next game
Kentucky at Louisville
When: Noon Saturday
TV: ABC-36
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 6-5 (3-5 SEC), Louisville 10-1 (7-1 ACC)
Series: Kentucky leads 19-15
Last meeting: Kentucky won 26-13 on Nov. 26, 2022, in Lexington
This story was originally published November 19, 2023 at 1:09 AM.
