Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 20-10 loss to Missouri
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Game day: Missouri 20, Kentucky 10
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Missouri football game at Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 20-10 loss to Missouri:
1. Kentucky did not match Missouri’s emotion. The Tigers had lost five in a row to the Wildcats and the Mizzou players spoke openly about the chip-on-the-shoulder mentality they were bringing into the game.
On the field, Missouri played with the zeal they promised to end the UK streak. Kentucky seemed flat, although some of that may have been due to UK’s complete inability to move the football.
UK has now lost to two teams with first-year head coaches, Mississippi (Lane Kiffin) and Mizzou (Eli Drinkwitz).
For a veteran team and established coaching staff, that is disappointing.
2. The Kentucky offense was abysmal. UK gained only 65 yards in the first half. The Wildcats finished the game with only 145.
The Cats’ passing attack was AWOL. Terry Wilson completed only three of nine passes for 35 yards. Backup Joey Gatewood went 1-of-4 for 12 yards.
With 3:05 left in the game, Missouri star running back Larry Rountree had carried the ball as many times himself (35 times) as UK had run plays.
For the second straight trip to Mizzou, Wilson was pulled. This time, there was no miracle comeback to flip the script.
Even with all the positive achievements Kentucky has accumulated with the Oklahoma City product at QB, Wilson is far more inconsistent than one would like from a senior.
3. Missouri gave Kentucky a dose of its own medicine. The Tigers ran 92 plays, 62 of them runs. Mizzou controlled the football a whopping 43:10 of the game.
It is widely thought that consistently losing to Kentucky helped get Barry Odom fired as Mizzou head coach. First-year head man Drinkwitz made a big statement to his new fan base by snapping the losing skid vs. UK in his first try.
4. Mark Stoops lost a chance at a positive achievement. With a victory, Stoops would have gone over .500 as Kentucky head coach for the first time in his tenure. Instead, Stoops left Missouri with a 46-47 record at UK.
5. Grant McKinniss factor. The Missouri punter, a graduate transfer from Kentucky, is now 5-0 in UK-Mizzou games. The ex-Cat made an impact in the game, too. Out of four punts, McKinniss pinned his former team inside the UK 20-yard line three times.
Fashion show
For its third road game of 2020, Kentucky wore white helmets, white jerseys with blue letters and numbers and white pants.
UK is 3-5 since the start of the 2015 season in all white.
This story was originally published October 24, 2020 at 7:27 PM.
