Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 34-17 win over Vanderbilt
READ MORE
Game day: Kentucky 34, Vanderbilt 17
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday night’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt football game at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville, Tenn.
Expand All
Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 34-17 win over Vanderbilt:
1. UK clinches a winning SEC mark. With the victory, Kentucky finished SEC play with a 5-3 mark. It is UK’s second winning league record in the past four seasons.
That is not a small thing.
Since the Southeastern Conference began playing football in 1933, UK has now had a winning record in league contests in only nine seasons.
The Cats have finished above .500 vs. SEC opponents in 1949 (4-1), 1950 (5-1), 1953 (4-1-1), 1954 (5-2), 1964 (4-2), 1976 (5-1), 1977 (6-0), 2018 (5-3) and 2021 (5-3).
Mark Stoops (2018 and 2021) joins Bear Bryant (1949, 1950, 1953) and Fran Curci (1976 and 1977) as the only Kentucky head men ever to produce multiple seasons with winning SEC records.
2. Stoops dominating three from the SEC East. The win over Vandy makes Mark Stoops 56-53 as Kentucky head coach. He now needs five wins to pass Paul “Bear” Bryant (60-23-5 from 1946-1953) as the all-time UK football wins leader.
Of his 56 victories as top Cat, Stoops has compiled 20 of them against three teams. The UK coach is 7-2 vs. South Carolina, 7-2 vs. Vanderbilt, and 6-3 against Missouri.
By winning, Kentucky (7-3, 5-3 SEC) also saw its all-time record as a program move back above .500 at 636-635-44.
3. Tale of two halves. Kentucky’s first half in Nashville was one of its best of the season. The Kentucky offense scored on its first four possessions, three touchdowns and a field goal.
Quarterback Will Levis started razor-sharp, completing his first seven throws for 118 yards and two touchdowns.
The UK defense held Vandy out of the end zone, and even scored a TD of its own on a 31-yard pick-six from Jalen Geiger.
Put it all together, and Kentucky led 31-3 at halftime.
Half number two did not go nearly so well for UK.
New Vanderbilt Coach Clark Lea pulled “passing quarterback” Ken Seals after a largely ineffective first half in favor of dual-threat Mike Wright.
With Wright at the controls, Vanderbilt uncorked two long touchdown drives, 12 plays for 75 yards and 11 plays for 72 yards.
If you are looking ahead to UK’s season-ending battle for the Governor’s Cup against Louisville and its dynamic QB Malik Cunningham, seeing Kentucky struggling so against Wright was not reassuring.
4. A key defensive return. For the first time since he suffered a “lower-leg injury” in UK’s win over Florida, senior nose guard Marquan McCall returned to the middle of the Kentucky defense Saturday night in spot duty.
Although the 6-foot-3, 357-pound McCall was not credited with a tackle, his presence may have helped energize the interior of the Wildcats defensive line.
End Josh Paschal had seven tackles, including two quarterback sacks. Sophomore nose guard Justin Rogers, one of the players who has filled in for McCall, went for four tackles, including two tackles for loss and a sack.
If McCall can get back anywhere close to his early-season form, it will make a big difference for Kentucky.
5. C-Rod joins an elite Stoops-era club. By rushing for 114 yards before sitting out most of the fourth quarter, Kentucky star running back Christopher Rodriguez went over 1,000 yards in a season for the first time.
C-Rod now has 1,032 yards on the season.
On television, it appeared Kentucky trainers were looking at one of Rodriguez’s hands during the final quarter.
UK rushers exceeding 1,000 yards has been a staple of the Mark Stoops coaching era.
Under Stoops, four different players have now combined to produce six 1,000-yards-plus rushing seasons.
Those players: Boom Williams (1,170 yards rushing in 2016), Benny Snell (1,091 yards in 2016; 1,333 in 2017; 1,449 in 2018), Lynn Bowden (1,468 in 2019), Rodriguez (1,032 yards in 2021).
Rodriguez is a “Vandy killer.” In his past three games vs. the Commodores, he has run for 129 yards and two touchdowns (2019), 149 yards and two TDs (2020), and 114 yards and one TD (2021).
Fashion police
For its final SEC game of 2021, Kentucky wore white helmets, white jerseys with blue letters and numbers and white pants.
Since the start of, the 2016 season, Kentucky is now 5-4 in all white.
This story was originally published November 13, 2021 at 10:26 PM.
