After another haunting loss to Tennessee, one thing might make UK fans feel better
After the latest gut-wrenching Kentucky football loss in the Wildcats’ annual border battle with Tennessee, frustrated UK backers might find consolation in this:
You are not the first generation of Kentucky football followers to bear the emotional brunt of UK’s persistent difficulty in scaling the Rocky Toppers.
In the first seven games Bear Bryant coached Kentucky against Tennessee (1946-1952), UK won zero.
If you think starting his UK tenure 0-5-2 vs. the Vols ate at the Bear, you are right.
Bryant’s competitive exasperation reached the point that he would send 11 scouts to see UT — one to chart each Vols player on the field.
Some seven decades later, the Bear — who finally beat UT 27-21 in 1953, in what proved his final game as UK coach — would recognize the way Kentucky fans are feeling.
UK’s 17-13 loss to UT on Saturday night came when the Wildcats failed to score in the final minutes after having first-and-goal at the Tennessee 6-yard line. It was the fourth time in the past 14 seasons that Kentucky had the football inside the UT 10-yard line at the end of regulation needing a touchdown to beat the Volunteers.
It was the fourth time UK failed to score that TD.
2006. Down 17-12, UK had the ball first-and-goal at the UT 6. A delay of game penalty on second down pushed the Cats from the 3 to the 8.
On fourth down, Kentucky called a misdirection pass play all but certain to yield a touchdown pass from Andre Woodson to Jacob Tamme — if Tennessee was playing man-to-man in its secondary.
UT was in a zone. Kentucky’s play call stood no chance, and it failed.
2007. Down 31-28 in the closing seconds of regulation, UK had the ball first-and-goal at the UT 5. A pass interference call took the ball to the Vols 2-yard line with eight seconds left.
On the ensuing play, UK wide receiver Keenan Burton was running open across the back of the end zone. However, after dropping a shotgun snap, Woodson had to rush his throw and missed Burton high.
UK settled for a tying field goal.
The Cats lost 52-50 in four overtimes.
2009. Down 24-21 in the final minutes, Kentucky marched the ball to the Tennessee 8-yard line. On third-and-5, Kentucky freshman quarterback Morgan Newton — not UK star Randall Cobb from the wildcat formation — tried to sweep right end and was stopped three yards short of the first down.
UK settled for a tying field goal.
The Cats lost 30-24 in overtime.
2019. On first-and-goal from the 6, Kentucky redshirt freshman running back Christopher Rodriguez tried to go off right tackle, bounced it outside and gained two yards.
On second down, UK quarterback Lynn Bowden kept the ball on a read-option and ran left for two yards.
After a Jeremy Pruitt timeout, Tennessee, inexplicably, had 12 men on the field. The ensuing penalty moved the ball to the Vols 1.
Needing one yard for victory, Rodriguez ran left but was stopped for a loss of a yard.
On fourth-and-goal from the 2-yard line, Bowden kept the ball on an option right but was snuffed for no gain.
For the game, Tennessee gained only 296 yards of total offense. It surrendered 302 rushing yards to Kentucky. Yet the Vols left Lexington with the victory.
In the frustrating aftermath, Kentucky second-guessing has centered on the fact Mark Stoops and Co. stayed with wide receiver Bowden at QB and didn’t give pocket-passing Sawyer Smith a chance in a game where the Cats had no aerial attack (completed four passes for 25 yards).
During a tense, one-score game, however, it’s asking a lot of a team that prepared all week to run an option offense with Bowden at the controls to switch mid-contest to a pass-oriented spread.
The biggest mystery of the season for UK (4-5, 2-5 SEC) is why a team with a veteran offensive line known for its physicality has had so much trouble converting in crucial short-yardage situations.
Kentucky failure on a fourth-and-1 run was the pivotal play that helped Florida flip the momentum and rally from 21-10 down in the fourth quarter to a 29-21 win.
For all the focus on Bowden’s failed fourth-and-goal option keeper in the Tennessee loss, it was UK’s inability to punch it in from the 1-yard-line on third-and-goal that ought to haunt everyone who cares about Kentucky football.
Instead of beating Tennessee for a third time this decade (2011 and 2017) and in back-to-back home games for the first time since 1957 and 1959, UK instead saw its football record vs. UT drop to 7-53 since 1960.
If nothing else Kentucky fans, you at least know the Big Orange vexation you are feeling this week has been survived by generations of prior UK football backers dating back even to Bear Bryant.
