Five things you need to know from UK football’s 41-18 win over South Carolina
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Game day: Kentucky 41, South Carolina 18
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s Kentucky-South Carolina football game at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 41-18 season-ending win over South Carolina:
1. Kentucky seniors went out in style. Running back A.J. Rose ran for 101 yards and a touchdown and moved into the top 10 on UK’s all-time rushing list.
Tight end Justin Rigg caught three passes for 72 yards.
Wide receiver Josh Ali caught a team-high five passes for 35 yards.
The offensive line, anchored by seniors Luke Fortner, Drake Jackson and Landon Young, blocked for a rushing attack that amassed 291 yards.
Quarterback Terry Wilson threw for 201 yards and ran for 46 yards and a touchdown. He now has more than 3,000 career passing yards and 1,000 career rushing yards.
Defensively, rush end/outside linebacker Boogie Watson had eight tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and two forced fumbles.
Nickelback Davonte Robinson had six tackles.
Tackle Phil Hoskins had four tackles.
End Kordell Looney had a fumble recovery.
Cornerback Brandin Echols had three stops and a pass breakup.
Safety Quandre Mosely had two tackles, including a solo.
At the end of a trying season, it was a feel-good ending for a senior class that has meant a lot to UK football.
2. Kentucky could move the ball against bad SEC defenses. Coming into this weekend’s games, the lowest-ranked defense in the SEC was Mississippi’s.
UK rang up 559 total yards and 41 points vs. the Rebels.
The next-to-worst defense in the SEC was Vanderbilt’s.
UK put up 458 yards and 38 points on the Commodores.
The second-to-worst defense in the SEC was South Carolina’s.
UK had 492 yards and 41 points vs. the Gamecocks Saturday night.
As frustrating as Kentucky’s offensive struggles against quality opposition were in 2020 — and they were dispiriting — it would have been worse if UK had failed to move the ball vs. bad defenses.
3. The Kentucky run defense got gashed. South Carolina running back Kevin Harris came to Lexington as the SEC’s leading rusher. He sliced and diced UK for 210 yards and a TD on 21 carries.
As a team, the Gamecocks ran for more yards, 297-291, than Kentucky.
4. Terry Wilson goes out a winner. Kentucky now has a 16-8 record in games in which the senior from Oklahoma City, Okla., starts at quarterback.
Wilson finished 9-8 in SEC games — with streak-busting wins at Florida (2018) and at Tennessee (this year) plus an all-time UK comeback at Missouri (2018).
No. 3 also directed a victory over Penn State in the Citrus Bowl (following the 2018 season).
Not a bad resume for a Kentucky quarterback.
5. A milestone win for Mark Stoops. With the victory, Stoops (48-50 since 2013) passed Fran Curci (47-51-2) for second place on the all-time Kentucky coaching victories list.
Stoops needs 13 more wins to pass Bear Bryant (60-23-5 from 1946-53) and become the winningest coach in UK football history.
Fashion show
For its final regular-season game of 2020, Kentucky wore silver chrome helmets, anthracite jerseys with white letters and numbers and anthracite pants.
Kentucky is now 6-4 in anthracite jerseys since the start of the 2016 season.
This story was originally published December 5, 2020 at 11:12 PM.
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