Blue Review: Turnovers foil Terry Wilson’s return as Kentucky quarterback
READ MORE
Game day: Kentucky at Auburn
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Auburn football game at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala.
Expand All
Instant analysis (gleaned from the SEC Network telecast) from Kentucky’s 29-13 loss to Auburn:
How the game was won
Kentucky’s offense scored on only two of five drives that reached Auburn territory and Tigers star wide receiver Seth Williams caught two touchdown passes in a dominant showing.
Game balls
1. Seth Williams. Auburn’s 6-foot-3, 211-pound junior turned in an electric performance (six catches, 112 yards, two touchdowns) by “playing over the top” of Kentucky’s defensive backs.
2. Bo Nix. The sophomore quarterback (16-of-27, 233 yards, three touchdowns) made some impressive throws for Auburn.
3. Guys named “Smoke.” Auburn safety Smoke Monday had 10 tackles, seven of which were solo. Kentucky running back Kavosiey Smoke ran for a team-best 62 yards with a 35-yard touchdown.
Running gassers
1. Terry Wilson. It was wonderful to see the Kentucky senior quarterback return to play after rehabbing from the major knee injury that ended his 2019 season. However, Wilson’s two turnovers — an interception on third-and-goal from the Auburn 1-yard-line; and a lost fumble that set up a short-field Tigers touchdown — really hurt UK.
2. Kentucky pass defense. UK allowed three passing touchdowns in its 2020 opener after surrendering only nine all last season.
3. UK playmaking. It’s just one game, but with Lynn Bowden in the NFL, we still don’t know from where Kentucky’s capacity to make explosive plays is going to come.
4. The SEC officials. It sure looked to me like Chris Rodriguez broke the plane of the goal on that late first-half run in what turned out to be, arguably, the decisive moment in the game.
Key number(s)
Forty-four and 45. With the loss, Mark Stoops’ overall record as UK head coach fell back under .500. Stoops still needs four more wins to pass Fran Curci (47-51-2 from 1973-81) as the second-winningest coach in Kentucky Wildcats football history.
Fashion police
For its 2020 season opener, Kentucky wore blue helmets, white jerseys with blue numbers and letters and blue pants. Since the start of the 2015 season, UK is now 3-6 in that uniform combination.
This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 3:26 PM.
