Five things you need to know from UK football’s 16-6 loss to No. 1 Georgia
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Game day: No. 1 Georgia 16, Kentucky 6
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Georgia football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 16-6 loss to No. 1 Georgia in an SEC East football game at Kroger Field:
1. Offensive inefficiency dooms Cats again. Given the level of competition, this was in many ways the best game Kentucky has played in 2022.
Yet the sloppy play that has haunted the Wildcats all season denied UK hope of pulling a “shock the nation” upset over the national championship favorite.
Kentucky drove the ball inside Georgia territory four times. It reached the Bulldogs’ red zone three times.
Yet — as has been a problem all season — the Cats scored on only one of those drives.
In the first half, Kentucky had a second-and-1 at the Georgia 31-yard line on its opening drive. On second down, Kentucky quarterback Will Levis threw high to an open Barion Brown. The Bulldogs stuffed Kentucky rushing attempts on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 to foil the drive.
On UK’s second drive of the game, the Wildcats reached the Georgia 16. However, Kelee Ringo intercepted a Levis pass in the end zone. It was the sixth red-zone turnover for the UK QB in 2022.
With Georgia leading 16-0, the Kentucky defense made a goal-line stand at the Wildcats’ 1-yard-line. Kentucky then drove 99 yards in nine plays, its best drive of the season.
Down 16-6, the Cats drove the ball to the Georgia 16. However, that drive, too, ended without points due to a missed field goal.
The way Kentucky plays low-possession, ball-control games, you have to maximize scoring opportunities.
That the Wildcats have consistently failed to do that is why the season has taken the less-than-hoped-for arc.
2. Another maddening field-goal exchange. With 4:17 left in the game, Matt Ruffolo lined up a 38-yard field goal. Had he made it, the Wildcats would have been within 16-9 and the level of pressure on Georgia would have been interesting.
However, continuing another maddening trend of the 2022 UK season, the long snap appeared low. That threw off the timing of the operation and Ruffolo’s attempt missed.
Again, when you play the style of games Kentucky is designed to play, you have to be impeccable in the kicking game.
That Stoops and his coaching staff have failed all season to clean up UK’s special teams has been a non-ending self-sabotage.
3. Barion Brown’s star turn. The Kentucky true freshman wide receiver has already been the subject of speculation that well-heeled booster collectives attached to traditional football powers are going to try to lure him into the transfer portal and away from Lexington.
The Nashville product’s performance against what many consider the nation’s best defense will likely only increase that buzz.
Brown was terrific in defeat, catching 10 passes for 145 yards and showing the ability to get deep on a Georgia secondary thought to be stacked with future NFL players.
4. Kentucky defense puts up a fight. In yet another re-occurrence of a distressing 2022 Kentucky football trend, the UK defense deserved a better fate.
The Wildcats held Georgia to 363 yards of total offense. In an effective display of “bend but don’t break,” UK limited the Bulldogs to three field goals and one TD on five trips into the red zone.
Among the Kentucky defenders who played stout: Senior linebacker Jordan Wright (10 tackles), transfer safety Zion Childress (nine stops), cornerback Carrington Valentine and linebackers Trevin Wallace and D’Eryk Jackson (all with eight tackles), and freshman safety Jordan Lovett (seven tackles, an interception).
5. “C-Rod Watch.” With 3,473 career rushing yards, Kentucky star running back Christopher Rodriguez entered Saturday’s game exactly 400 yards behind Benny Snell’s all-time UK rushing record of 3,873.
That meant that over UK’s final two regular-season contests plus a presumed bowl game, “C-Rod” needed to average 134 yards rushing a game to break Snell’s mark.
That figured to be a difficult figure to hit against Georgia, which came to Lexington with the fourth-best rushing defense in the FBS, surrendering an average of only 82.5 yards a game on the ground — and it was.
Rodriguez ran 17 times for 51 yards. The McDonough, Ga., product now has 3,524 career yards and needs 350 yards to pass Snell.
In Kentucky’s regular-season finale vs. Louisville plus a presumed bowl, C-Rod will now need to average 175 yards rushing to become UK’s all-time leader.
Fashion police
For its final SEC game of 2022, Kentucky wore silver chrome helmets, anthracite jerseys with white letters and numbers and anthracite pants.
It was the first time UK wore silver chrome, anthracite, anthracite since last season’s 42-21 win over LSU.
Since the start of the 2016 season, Kentucky is now 5-2 when it wears all-anthracite uniforms.
This story was originally published November 19, 2022 at 6:57 PM.
