Now in an 0-2 hole, can Kentucky save its football season?
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Game day: Kentucky vs. Ole Miss
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Mississippi football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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The bizarre year that has been 2020 is serving as a reality check for Kentucky Wildcats football.
After a missed UK extra point in overtime left the door open for Mississippi to score a 42-41 upset victory over Mark Stoops and troops at Kroger Field on Saturday, the Cats have begun a season of high expectations in an 0-2 crater.
“A very difficult way to lose a football game,” an ashen-faced Stoops said afterward on his postgame Zoom news conference.
With eight Southeastern Conference games remaining — including contests at No. 2 Alabama, at No. 3 Florida, vs. No. 4 Georgia, vs. No. 16 Mississippi State and at No. 21 Tennessee — the UK season feels like it rests on the floor of the Grand Canyon.
What we are learning, however, is not that UK football success is hopeless. Eighteen victories the past two seasons, four straight bowl trips, have disproved that.
But, so far, 2020 has been a grim reminder of how narrow the margin of error is for football success at Kentucky.
In week one, three UK turnovers and a failed fake punt cost the Cats a chance to claim an attention-grabbing, season-opening victory at No. 8 Auburn.
For the home opener, it was a pass defense that often looked helpless against the high-tempo offense Lane Kiffin has brought to Ole Miss — plus two costly missed place-kicks — that did the Cats in.
“As I mentioned to our team, we have to find a way to execute better in critical moments,” Stoops said.
One week after Auburn sophomore quarterback Bo Nix threw for three touchdowns vs. UK, impressive Mississippi sophomore signal caller Matt Corral lit up the Cats secondary for 320 passing yard and four touchdowns.
A 6-foot-1, 205-pound product of Ventura, Calif., Corral threw only five incomplete passes (24 of 29) in the entire game and no interceptions.
In 2019, Kentucky’s pass defense allowed only nine TD tosses all year. The Wildcats finished second in the country last season in passing yards allowed (167.8).
However, of the 12 games the Cats played last year against FBS foes, only two of their opponents (No. 16 Florida and No. 28 Eastern Michigan) finished above 65th in the nation in passing offense. UK also played at least four games in driving rainstorms in 2019.
In retrospect, we should have been more skeptical in our preseason evaluations of the expected strength of Kentucky’s defensive backfield in 2020.
“We have to play better defense than that, or you’re not going to win,” Stoops said bluntly.
In what has to have UK backers reaching for the Maalox bottle, UK managed to lose to Mississippi in spite of running for 408 yards and having not one, not two, but three players go over 100 yards rushing.
Sophomore power back Christopher Rodriguez rambled for 133 yards and two touchdowns; senior quarterback Terry Wilson glided for 129 yards and three scores; senior tailback A.J. Rose added 117 yards and a TD.
Mississippi’s struggling defense was largely helpless against Kentucky’s “Big Blue Wall,” the veteran offensive line that played up to its preseason hype.
UK’s dominance in the running game would have been enough to win the game — had the Wildcats’ place-kicking held up.
We are now into the second season since ex-Kentucky kicking star Austin MacGinnis graduated, but UK still has not adequately replaced him.
On Saturday, UK kicker Matt Ruffolo missed from 49 yards on a field goal after his kick banged off the right upright. After Wilson’s 10-yard TD run put Kentucky ahead 41-35 in overtime, Ruffolo missed wide right on the PAT.
To succeed in football at Kentucky, one must win close games. Since the start of 2016, UK has now played 20 games decided by seven points or less — and has won 13 of them.
That trend is not apt to continue, however, if Stoops and Co. cannot find/develop reliable place-kicking.
Having started 0-2 and with only SEC foes left to play, the answer to the question of whether Kentucky can save its season is a resounding maybe.
Kentucky still has a veteran roster with lots of good players, especially on the offensive line and in the offensive backfield.
If UK can beat Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and South Carolina at home and Missouri on the road, then one upset of a traditional SEC power would still allow the Cats to break even.
Even with eight Southeastern Conference games straight ahead, the biggest opponent for the Cats in the short run is going to be the negativity that comes with starting out in an 0-2 hole.
This is not what an unusually optimistic UK fan base spent this past offseason envisioning.
“I expect our leaders to step up,” Stoops said. “We knew it was going to be a challenge. Our players knew it was going to be a challenge. It’s going to be a challenging year.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2020 at 10:12 PM.
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