Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 33-27 loss to No. 21 Tennessee
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Game day: No. 21 Tennessee 33, Kentucky 27
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Tennessee football game at Kroger Field.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 33-27 loss to No. 21 Tennessee:
1. “Groundhog Day” for UK football fans. For the 36th time in the past 39 meetings between UK and UT, the Wildcats came out on the wrong end of the score.
For the third straight time vs. the Volunteers in Lexington, Kentucky came out on the wrong end of a one-score game.
This time, the primary issue that prevented UK from winning was an inability to stop the Tennessee running game.
The Volunteers ran for 254 yards.
Jaylen Wright ran for 120 yards on 11 carries. Third-stringer Dylan Sampson rushed for 76 yards on 17 carries and made the two plays that broke UK’s back.
With Tennessee ahead 26-24 and facing third-and-10 from the UK 29-yard line, Sampson caught a short Joe Milton pass over the middle and turned it into a 17-yard gain. On the ensuing play, Sampson burst off right guard for a 12-yard TD run that put the Vols ahead 33-24.
UK backers will lament an 18-yard pass completion from Milton to Ramel Keyton with 32 seconds left in the first half. On a third-and-6 from the Vols’ 29, the play moved Tennessee to the 47 and helped ignite a drive that ended with a Charles Campbell field goal with five seconds left in the first half.
Keyton appeared to me to be clearly out of bounds by the time he had full possession of the pass, but the replay officials looked at the play and let it stand.
The late field goal gave Tennessee a 23-17 halftime lead and those additional points had a big impact on how the game played out in half two.
In 2019, a last-gasp Tennessee goal-line stand preserved a 17-13 UT victory over UK at Kroger Field.
Two seasons ago, the Volunteers’ defense got a late stop to preserve a 45-42 win over Kentucky in Lexington.
This year, UK took another frustrating loss to the Vols at home.
2. Devin Leary’s best game. In defeat, the UK quarterback played the top game of his UK career to date.
Leary completed 28 of 39 passes for 372 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions.
It was also a strong outing for Kentucky’s previously struggling receiving corps. Dane Key caught seven passes for 113 yards and a TD.
Barion Brown had five receptions for 58 yards and a TD.
Tight end Jordan Dingle had four catches for 61 yards and slot receiver Tayvion Robinson had three catches for 33 yards.
This was the passing game people projected entering the season from Kentucky.
Leary’s performance Saturday night was only the 16th time in the Mark Stoops coaching era that a UK QB threw for over 300 yards. It was the second 300-plus-yards passing game for Leary at UK. He threw for 315 yards in Kentucky’s win over Akron earlier this season.
Under Stoops, Kentucky has only had four games with more passing yards than the 372 Leary put on the board vs. UT.
3. Cats not protecting home turf. After Saturday night, Kentucky is now 2-6 in its last eight home games vs. Southeastern Conference opponents.
With No. 9 Alabama looming for UK’s 2023 home finale on Nov. 11, UK is looking at a second straight season in which it goes 1-3 in league contests played in Lexington.
Simply put, there is no way to sustain a quality SEC football program without better performance vs. league foes on the home turf.
In Kentucky’s 10-win seasons of 2018 and 2021 (10-3 each season), the Wildcats went 3-1 in SEC home games in both years.
4. Cats vs. a ranked Tennessee. With its loss to the No. 21 Volunteers, Kentucky saw its all-time mark vs. the Vols when UT is ranked in the AP Top 25 drop to 4-36-1.
The most recent victory for UK over a ranked UT team in Lexington remains the 20-0 upset of No. 20 Tennessee recorded at Stoll Field by Blanton Collier’s Cats in 1959.
5. Stoops fails to reach a rare level. Kentucky’s loss prevented Mark Stoops from achieving his third victory as UK head man vs. Tennessee.
Instead, Stoops is now 2-9 against the Volunteers.
Since World War II, only Blanton Collier (5-2-1 from 1954 through 1961) and Fran Curci (3-6 from 1973 through 1981) have coached Kentucky to as many as three victories over Tennessee.
Fashion police
For its eighth game of the 2023 season, Kentucky wore blue helmets, blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and blue pants.
Since the start of the 2015 season, UK is now 8-4 in all-blue uniforms.
This story was originally published October 28, 2023 at 10:40 PM.
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