Will Kentucky football ever beat Georgia? The dream is over, but the season goes on.
READ MORE
Game day: No. 1 Georgia 51, No. 20 Kentucky 13
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Georgia football game at Athens, Georgia.
Expand All
After Kentucky’s humbling 51-13 loss at No. 1-ranked Georgia on Saturday night, you can forgive Big Blue Nation for asking one basic question: Will it ever happen?
Now 0-11 against Georgia, will Mark Stoops ever beat the Bulldogs? Will Kentucky football ever be able to beat the biggest programs on the biggest stages? Will the Wildcats ever be able to take that so-called next step?
Saturday offered a golden opportunity. Stoops’ unbeaten and 20th-ranked squad was fresh off a decisive 33-14 win over Florida, UK’s third straight win over the Gators. Meanwhile, the two-time defending national champion Bulldogs had struggled in their two SEC contests, holding off South Carolina 24-14 and Auburn 27-20.
Kentucky looked powerful. Georgia looked vulnerable. Ah, but looks can deceive. And sometimes you’re the windshield. And sometimes you’re the bug.
Kentucky was a bug Saturday at Sanford. Georgia was a steamroller. The fear in the UK camp was that this would be the week Kirby Smart’s team put it all together. The fear became a nightmare.
Georgia scored touchdowns on its first three possessions, points on its first six. By halftime, the Bulldogs led 34-7, UK’s largest halftime deficit since 2012 against Vanderbilt when a 27-0 hole became a 40-0 loss. By game’s end, Georgia had rolled up 608 total yards of offense, the first opponent to reach 600 since the Bulldogs in 2013.
That was Stoops’ first season as UK coach. Back then, he fielded a team that was 2-10 the season before. The Wildcats have made great strides since. They’ve posted a pair of 10-win seasons. They’ve been to seven consecutive bowl games. They’ve raised the talent level and the expectations.
They have not made it to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game, however. Outside of a miracle they won’t make it this year. Saturday showed that remains a bridge too far.
It’s a tough task, no doubt. It’s the way college football works. There’s no draft. There’s no salary cap. There’s no leveling of the playing field. As a rule, traditional powers remain traditional powers. It’s a steep hill for the wannabes to climb.
For Kentucky, what made Saturday’s game particularly disheartening was how it unfolded, however. Georgia is really good. No doubt. The Bulldogs have won 23 straight games. Sanford under the lights has become a splitting headache of flashing lights, blaring music and crowd noise. But early on, Kentucky aided the Georgia cause with self-inflicted wounds.
Penalties helped kill UK’s first two drives. Quarterback Devin Leary failed to connect with a wide-open Tayvion Robinson on a “sail route” in the early moments. A silly unnecessary roughness penalty by defensive tackle Deone Walker when he blindsided a Georgia player on a dead ball kept a scoring drive alive. Matters snowballed.
“As a play-caller, I just couldn’t get it right either,” defensive coordinator Brad White said. “I was either a play early, a play late. This was one of those where nothing seemed to go right.”
Asked if this was a burn-the-tape game, offensive coordinator Liam Coen said, “Got a few texts that said burn the tape, so I assume it was one of those. … But I’m sure it will be difficult for me (to do that) personally.”
Asked in the postgame press conference what his team needed to do beat a Georgia, Stoops sort of sighed, then said, “Keep grinding.”
The dream is over, but the season goes on. Six down, six to go. A 5-1 Missouri comes to Kroger Field on Saturday to play a 5-1 Kentucky. There is still plenty for which to play. Accolades. Bowls. Pride.
“If you can’t respond from this one, it’s going to be tough to respond from anything in life,” Coen said.
“But I will say this,” White said, “there is still no defense that I would rather coach than this group of guys. They competed to the end. We’ll go back. We’ll figure out the issues and we’ll be ready for next week.”
There’s nothing else to do.
This story was originally published October 8, 2023 at 11:12 AM.
