Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 24-10 loss to Auburn
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Game day: Auburn 24, Kentucky 10
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Auburn football game in Lexington.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 24-10 loss to Auburn:
1. A lost season of SEC home games. Kentucky’s loss means the Wildcats have gone winless (0-4) in SEC home games for the first time since the 2-10 campaign of 2013.
UK is now 2-11 in its last 13 league home games.
If you are looking for the primary reason why Kentucky is in the midst of its third straight disappointing season, this stat is No. 1 on that list.
2. Tigers own the Wildcats. With its defeat, Kentucky has still never beaten Auburn at the venue now known as Kroger Field — which opened in 1973.
Kentucky is 0-8 against Auburn at Kroger Field/Commonwealth Stadium.
The Wildcats have still not beaten the Tigers in Lexington since a 17-7 win in 1966 at Stoll Field.
Overall, UK is now 1-19 in its last 20 meetings with Auburn dating back to 1967.
3. Bowl streak now on life support. With the loss to Auburn, hopes of Kentucky extending its eight-season bowl streak seem all but nonexistent.
Sitting at 3-5 overall on the season, Kentucky must now win three of its final four games to get to the six-win threshold necessary for bowl eligibility.
In its two remaining home games, UK will be expected to win against struggling FCS foe Murray State (1-6) on Nov. 16, and the Wildcats will face archrival Louisville (5-3) on Nov. 30 in the regular season finale.
But the Wildcats will be massive underdogs in their two remaining road games — at No. 7 Tennessee (6-1) on Nov. 2 and at No. 5 Texas (6-1) on Nov. 23 — and the Cats must now win at least one of those games to have any hope of going bowling.
4. Auburn engineers a major reversal. After the first quarter Saturday night, Kentucky led 10-0 and had outgained the visiting Tigers 115 yards to 38.
Over the remainder of the game, Auburn won 24-0 and outgained Kentucky 460 to 109.
The key to the turnaround was a punishing Auburn rushing attack.
Against a UK defensive front that has become very beaten up physically, Auburn running back Jarquez Hunter ran 23 times for 278 yards and two touchdowns.
For the game, Auburn outgained Kentucky 326-70 on the ground.
5. UK makes a QB change. Former Owensboro High School star Gavin Wimsatt replaced Brock Vandagriff at the start of the second half and ran the Kentucky offense throughout the second half.
The former starting quarterback at Rutgers, Wimsatt completed 3 of 10 passes for 34 yards and threw a costly interception on fourth-and-goal from the Auburn 3 with 4:39 left in the game.
A 6-3, 227-pound junior, Wimsatt ran 10 times for a net 16 yards.
In the first half, Vandagriff went 9-of-17 passing for 120 yards and threw a pick. He ran three times for a net minus 11 yards.
Fashion police
For its final SEC home game of 2024, Kentucky wore silver chrome helmets, blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and blue pants.
Since the start of the 2020 season, UK is now 2-3 in silver chrome helmets on top of all-blue uniforms.
This story was originally published October 26, 2024 at 11:06 PM.
