Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s maddening 17-14 loss to South Carolina
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Game day: South Carolina 17, Kentucky 14
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-South Carolina football game at Columbia, S.C.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 17-14 loss to South Carolina:
1. Kentucky self-sabotages again. The UK offense spent the night undermining its own efforts.
On UK’s first drive of the game, what would have been a first down produced by a Devin Leary to Izayah Cummings pass was negated by an illegal shift penalty on the Wildcats.
Kentucky’s second drive of the game was foiled when a 7-yard run by Ray Davis was negated by a face-mask penalty on UK left guard Dylan Ray.
Down 10-7 in the second quarter, the Wildcats had the ball at the South Carolina 15-yard line but got no points when Leary underthrew an open Cummings in the end zone and was intercepted by Nick Emmanwori.
After the UK defense forced a three-and-out by South Carolina, Kentucky had the ball back and Leary hit Dane Key with a pass near the Gamecocks 35-yard line.
While Key was running up field, South Carolina’s Jalon Kilgore knocked the ball out from behind and the Gamecocks’ D.Q. Smith recovered the fumble at the 34.
“It’s killing us to have two good (offensive) possessions there and have two turnovers,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops told the UK Radio Network’s Jeremy Jarmon at halftime.
The second half was more of the same.
With UK up 14-10 in the third quarter and with a chance to seize control of the game, what would have been a first-down pass from Leary to Key near the Wildcats 35-yard line was nullified by a holding penalty on Kentucky tight end Josh Kattus.
Once South Carolina had taken a 17-14 lead, Kentucky had the ball at the 50-yard line, first-and-10 with 2:10 left in the game.
On the initial play of the drive, South Carolina rushed three, dropped eight, but got pressure on Leary anyway.
Jordan Strachan hurried Leary, and when the ball came out of the Kentucky QB’s hand, it was intercepted by nose guard Tonka Hemingway.
You are not going to win many SEC road games turning in a minus-three in turnover margin and committing seven penalties, many in crucial moments.
The past two Kentucky football seasons have been undermined by self-inflicted wounds and continuous sloppy play.
2. Third-and-long continues to haunt the UK defense. Let’s stipulate that, in giving up only 17 points in an SEC road game, the Kentucky defense played well enough to win.
Still, UK’s maddening inability to make advantageous down-and-distance scenarios pay off once again reared its head.
On South Carolina’s first drive of the game, the Kentucky “D” gave up first downs on a third-and-7 and a third-and-10 as Spencer Rattler drove the Gamecocks 69 yards for a touchdown.
Then, on what became the game-winning South Carolina TD drive in the final quarter, Kentucky surrendered a 28-yard pass from Rattler to Xavier Legette on third-and-15 from the Carolina 21.
At the other end of the field on the same drive, UK had South Carolina facing third-and-9 at the UK 17 and saw Rattler throw 17 yards to Legette for the game-winning TD.
3. Cats waste stellar effort from Deone Walker. In defeat, UK star defensive tackle Deone Walker turned in a brilliant individual performance.
The 6-foot-6, 340-pound sophomore from Detroit had a team-high nine tackles, eight of them solo, and was credited with two tackles for loss, a sack and a quarterback hurry.
Walker’s performance was as good an individual showing from an interior defensive lineman as Kentucky has had in my memory.
4. Cats fail to get “the road three.” With UK’s defeat, Kentucky missed an opportunity to earn a third SEC road win in the same season for the first time since 2009.
In addition to the loss at South Carolina, UK also fell at No. 1 Georgia (51-13) this season. The Wildcats won at Vanderbilt (45-28) and at Mississippi State (24-3).
The last time the Wildcats won three SEC road games in the same year remains 2009, when Rich Brooks, Randall Cobb and Derrick Locke led the Cats to wins at Auburn, Vanderbilt and Georgia.
5. Cats fail to get to four SEC wins. From 2016 through 2021, Kentucky reached at least four wins in SEC play five times in six seasons.
The loss to South Carolina, however, means Kentucky (6-5, 3-5 SEC) will fail for the second straight season to reach four league wins.
Fashion police
For its final SEC East game ever, Kentucky wore blue helmets, white jerseys with blue letters and numbers and blue pants.
Since the start of the 2015 season, UK is now 4-10 in the blue-white-blue uniform color combination.
This story was originally published November 18, 2023 at 11:05 PM.
