With Florida up next, there is one thing Kentucky football’s offense has to get fixed
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Game day: Kentucky 45, Vanderbilt 28
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt football game at Nashville, Tennessee.
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As the assembled media grilled Kentucky coach Mark Stoops about various offensive problems the Wildcats displayed even in a decisive victory at Vanderbilt, he finally replied with a question of his own.
“Can I enjoy this one for five minutes?” Stoops asked. “We’re 4-0 and I’ve been pissed off in every news conference.”
The odd dynamic that has defined the 2023 Kentucky football season to date continued Saturday. The Wildcats (4-0, 1-0 SEC) avenged last season’s upset home loss to Vanderbilt (2-3, 0-1 SEC) with a 45-28 victory before 26,279 mostly UK fans at the construction site that is FirstBank Stadium.
UK won its SEC road opener for a third straight season behind an opportunistic defense that scored two touchdowns — both on pick sixes by cornerback Maxwell Hairston — and set up a short-field TD with a third interception and return.
Yet after a hot offensive start in the first quarter that saw the Wildcats open up a 21-0 lead and out gain Vandy 148-47, UK essentially went the next two quarters in a sustained offensive lull.
“It felt like that lasted about an eternity,” Kentucky offensive coordinator Liam Coen said afterward.
Now that UK has successfully navigated a Charmin-soft first four games to its season, things are about to get real for the Wildcats. Starting with next week’s SEC home opener against No. 22 Florida, the time to work the kinks out of the Cats’ offensive attack has run out.
If Kentucky is to take down the mighty Gators for a third straight season Saturday, Coen and the UK offensive brain trust would seemingly have to get one particular area fixed:
Simply put, the Wildcats have got to get better at moving the ball on first down.
In a continuation of a season-long trend, this was UK’s initial six first-down plays in the second half Saturday against Vandy coach Clark Lea’s defense:
▪ A gain of zero yards after a Devin Leary pass was knocked down by a pass rusher;
▪ A Ray Davis run for no gain;
▪ A Leary dropped shot-gun snap that yielded a loss of 4 yards;
▪ A Leary pass to Demie Sumo-Karngbaye for 3 yards;
▪ An incomplete Leary pass intended for Tayvion Robinson;
▪ And a Davis run for a loss of a yard.
“Pretty miserable. Pretty tough,” Coen said of UK’s first-down struggles. “… It’s the same thing (we’ve been) preaching all week but, obviously, it didn’t show consistently throughout the day — that’s early-down success, early-down efficiency.”
Said UK’s Leary: “We’re hurting ourselves. It’s just up to us (to fix the first-down problems). It comes down to that, starting with myself. I need to be better.”
In his first SEC game as Kentucky’s starting QB, Leary had a challenging afternoon. The transfer from North Carolina State went 15 of 29 for 215 yards and one touchdown versus two interceptions. The issue of missing open receivers by throwing high — which has hampered Leary at various times so far this season — was present in Music City.
Depth perception issues from having to throw in a stadium that is undergoing a full-on renovation — with two cranes holding up the scoreboard in one end zone and the other end zone featuring the shell of a building being constructed — were not an issue, Leary said.
“No, not really,” Leary said. “Definitely was different, something I’ve never done before. But, in the moment, you don’t even realize it.”
Perhaps the most positive offensive moment for Kentucky on Saturday came on an 88-yard touchdown drive that enveloped the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth.
UK got the ball into the end zone even though it had to overcome an ineligible receiver penalty and two holding calls — and then got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on its touchdown play (a 22-yard pass from Leary to Dane Key).
For an offense that so often puts itself in disadvantageous spots, it was encouraging to overcome so many mishaps to complete a long drive.
“You get a little agitated. (You are like,) ‘Guys, let’s just execute. We’re just shooting ourselves directly in the foot,’” Coen said. “But overcoming all that is good. It is resilient. That was nice to see.”
We are now through a third of the 2023 Kentucky season. The first-down struggles, the penchant for sloppy play — UK committed 10 penalties for 105 yards Saturday — have been staples so far.
With the competition about to ramp up, Coen said Kentucky’s path to performing better on first down involves running the ball better.
“That’s got to be an emphasis for us — to stop taking negative runs,” Coen said. “It’s putting us behind the chains and making the game a lot harder for us.”
As Florida awaits, Leary said there is a silver lining to the UK offense’s first-down blues.
“It’s definitely fixable mistakes,” the Kentucky quarterback said.
If so, the time for fixing is more than at hand.
This story was originally published September 23, 2023 at 6:27 PM.
