Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 35-3 win over Akron
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Game day: Kentucky 35, Akron 3
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Akron football game at Kroger Field in Lexington.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 35-3 win over the Akron Zips at Kroger Field:
1. Leary’s better start. In his first two Kentucky starts, quarterback Devin Leary had been slow out of the gates. That was not the case in the victory over Akron.
The North Carolina State transfer led a 75-yard scoring drive on the first possession of the game, completing four of four passes for 63 yards. Leary ended the first half 12-of-16 for 208 yards and two TDs.
In UK’s 44-14 win over Ball State in the season opener, Leary completed only 8 of 20 passes in the first half; he was 10-of-11 in half two.
During the Wildcats’ 28-17 victory over Eastern Kentucky in week two, Leary went 14-of-25 before halftime; he was 10-of-13 in the second half.
Before leaving the game midway through the fourth quarter, Leary completed 16 of 26 passes for 315 yards and three TDs.
It was the 15th game for a Kentucky quarterback with more than 300 yards passing during the Mark Stoops coaching era. Patrick Towles (five such games), Will Levis (five), Stephen Johnson (two), Maxwell Smith (one) and Drew Barker (one) have the others.
2. The drive to run more plays stalls. After running only 112 combined plays in its first two games (51 vs. Ball State, 61 against Eastern Kentucky, UK offensive coordinator Liam Coen pledged to try to do things to create more snaps vs. Akron.
Once again, for various reasons, that did not happen.
UK finished the game having run only 49 plays from scrimmage. Three turnovers, including a fumbled punt that was lost, were the big culprits in keeping the Kentucky offense from getting more run.
In Coen’s previous stint as UK offensive coordinator in 2021, Kentucky ran an average of 66.3 plays a game. Last season, with Rich Scangarello calling the Wildcats’ offense for 12 of the Cats’ 13 games, UK averaged 62.5 plays from scrimmage.
The number of plays one runs does not always directly correlate to the bottom line. In 2021, Kentucky ran 47 offensive plays vs. Florida and won — and ran a whopping 99 plays vs. Tennessee and lost.
3. Third-down defensive numbers improve. Against an Akron offensive attack with limited weaponry, the Kentucky defense showed improvement in defending on third down.
The Wildcats held Coach Joe Moorhead’s Zips to 6-of-15 on third-down conversions. That was a step up from the third-down conversion numbers that the Wildcats allowed against Ball State (9-of-17) and Eastern Kentucky (6-of-12) in the season’s first two games.
4. Mark Stoops report. With Saturday’s victory, the UK head man is now 10-0 against Mid-American Conference teams — 2-0 vs. both Miami (Ohio) and Eastern Michigan; 1-0 against Ohio, Central Michigan, Toledo, Northern Illinois, Ball State and Akron.
Against teams from the Group of Five conferences, Stoops is now 18-2 and has won 13 such games in a row.
UK and Stoops have won 19 straight regular season games against non-conference foes.
Stoops is now 69-59 as Kentucky head man. After starting 12-26, Stoops has since gone 57-33.
5. Happy 50th birthday, Kroger Field. Now 50 years and one day into the existence of Kroger Field/Commonwealth Stadium, Kentucky stands 185-141-4 in the venue that opened on Sept. 15, 1973.
Fashion police
For its first night game of 2023, Kentucky wore blue helmets, blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and white pants.
The Wildcats have now won eight games in a row in the blue-blue-white color combination.
This story was originally published September 16, 2023 at 10:40 PM.
