Cutter Boley struggles in first road start; South Carolina routs Kentucky football
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Gameday: South Carolina 35, Kentucky 13
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-South Carolina football game at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C.
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Two weeks after it appeared Cutter Boley had injected some life to Kentucky football’s struggling offense, South Carolina handed the Wildcats a dose of reality with a 35-13 victory.
Making his first career road start, Boley lost two turnovers that were returned for touchdowns on back-to-back second-quarter drives to erase the momentum Kentucky (2-2, 0-2 SEC) had built with an encouraging start. He threw another interception later in the quarter that gave South Carolina (3-2, 1-2) a short field for a third touchdown.
Boley finished the game having completed 10 of 19 of passes for 124 yards and two interceptions. Senior running back Seth McGowan topped the 100-yard plateau for the second straight week with 112 yards and one touchdown, but in a repeat of so many Kentucky games in the past decade, the offense was far too one-dimensional to have any hope of a comeback after the second-quarter debacle.
Boley was sacked six times and fumbled three times (though UK recovered two of the fumbles). Even Kentucky’s opening drive, which resulted in a 20-yard McGowan touchdown could have ended earlier when Boley’s first downfield pass of the game bounced off the hands of a South Carolina defender.
Kentucky’s only points in the final three quarters came on a 42-yard Jacob Kauwe field goal after the Wildcats were handed a short field when South Carolina coach Shane Beamer elected to try a fake punt from his own 29-yard line.
Zach Calzada, who started the first two games of the season for UK, did dress out for the game as the third-string quarterback behind walk-on backup Beau Allen, but he threw very little in warmups now three weeks removed from an injury to his throwing shoulder. The schedule only gets more difficult from here for either quarterback with four straight games against teams ranked in this week’s Associated Press Top 25, starting with next week’s trip to Georgia.
Turning point
Kentucky actually looked in control of the game through the first quarter, but the second quarter quickly turned into a disaster. In the span of three plays, Boley lost a fumble that was returned 41 yards for a touchdown and threw an interception that was returned 45 yards for another score. In less than a minute of game time, a 10-7 Kentucky lead turned into a 21-10 deficit. Considering Kentucky has not rallied to win a game it trailed by 11 points since 2019, the sequence felt like a knockout punch despite most of three quarters still being left to play.
Player of the game
South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers has struggled for most of the first month of the season, but Saturday he looked every bit the part of the preseason Heisman Trophy contender he was hyped to be. Sellers completed 11 of 14 passes for 153 yards and led South Carolina in rushing with 14 carries for 81 yards.
Key stat
Kentucky has now lost its past five SEC games after a bye week. The Wildcats did beat FCS Murray State after a bye last season, but the Wildcats are now 5-10 after bye weeks in the Mark Stoops era and 1-5 in the past four seasons. Kentucky has another bye in two weeks before hosting Texas.
This story was originally published September 27, 2025 at 11:08 PM.
