Five things you need to know from Kentucky football’s 48-6 win over Murray State
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Game day: Kentucky 48, Murray State 6
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Murray State football game at Kroger Field.
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Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 48-6 win over Murray State at Kroger Field on Saturday:
1. Kentucky quarterback usage. Regular UK QB starter Brock Vandagriff played the first half for the Wildcats.
Vandagriff, who left UK’s 28-18 loss at Tennessee two weeks ago with an apparent head injury and missed some subsequent practice time, looked rusty.
He completed 12 of 19 passes for 183 yards and two touchdowns with an interception. The transfer from Georgia threw a 52-yard touchdown pass to true freshman Hardley Gilmore — but was fortunate. Gilmore was behind the Murray State defense but the pass was underthrown and should have been intercepted.
However, the ball went through the hands of MSU cornerback KaVan Reed and Gilmore caught the deflection and scooted into the end zone.
True freshman Cutter Boley assumed the UK quarterback duties in the second half — and looked good.
The former Lexington Christian Academy star led Wildcats scoring drives on his first four possessions at QB, including throwing his first two college touchdown passes, on throws of 22 and 14 yards to Anthony Brown-Stephens.
Admittedly, against a Murray State defense that, statistically, is one of the worst in NCAA Division I football, Boley looked poised and comfortable in the pocket.
He finished 10 of 14 passing for 130 yards with the two TD throws. Boley also ripped off a 30-yard run on an option keeper.
2. A UK youth movement. Facing a 1-9 FCS team, Kentucky held out a number of injured starters, including Deone Walker, J.J. Weaver, Jamon Dumas-Johnson and D’Eryk Jackson from the defense and Barion Brown from the offense.
(On the UK Sports Network game broadcast, play-by-play announcer Tom Leach said Jackson, Kentucky’s starting weakside linebacker, is out for the season).
With so many key players out, a number of younger Cats got a chance to make an impression.
In addition to Cutter Boley, redshirt freshman running back Jamarion Wilcox recorded his second straight 100-plus-yards rushing game, running for 123 yards and a touchdown (he also had a 73-yard run called back by penalty).
True freshman wideout Hardley Gilmore had two catches for 72 yards and a TD (and he had a 53-yard run on a reverse called back by penalty).
Willie Rodriguez, the true frosh tight end from Covington Catholic, caught a 16-yard pass from classmate Boley.
Sophomore Anthony Brown-Stephens caught three passes for 51 yards and the two touchdowns.
Redshirt freshman offensive tackle Malachi Wood made his third straight start at right tackle. After starting center Eli Cox left the game in the third quarter with a foot injury, redshirt frosh Koby Keenum got some repetitions in his place.
Defensively, redshirt freshman Grant Godfrey started at middle linebacker and made three tackles.
True freshman cornerback Terhyon Nichols broke up a pass.
Meanwhile, true frosh Jacob Kauwe handled most of the kickoff duties for the UK special teams.
If Kentucky can keep its young players out of the transfer portal, the Cats do appear to have some talent in the pipeline.
3. A parade of penalty flags. Late in the third quarter with Murray State in possession of the ball and driving into the UK red zone, there was a sequence in which the game officials called penalties on six consecutive plays.
At the end of that storm of flags, UK Sports Network radio analyst Jeff Piecoro joked the officials “are going to have to ice their arms down after this.”
For the game, Murray State was called for a whopping 15 penalties for 112 yards. UK was penalized nine times for 87 yards.
4. UK extends a win streak. With its victory over Murray State, Kentucky has now won its last 23 nonconference, regular season games in a row (UK subsequently vacated four of those victories, from the 2021 season, due to NCAA rules violations committed by Kentucky).
UK has not lost a regular season, non-SEC contest since Lamar Jackson and Louisville thrashed the Wildcats 44-17 on Nov. 25, 2017.
Mark Stoops is now 11-5 in games against in-state teams — 6-4 vs. Louisville, 3-0 vs. Eastern Kentucky, 2-0 vs. Murray State, and 0-1 against Western Kentucky.
5. A rare “double” for Murray State’s Justice Hill. On Saturday, Hill, a former basketball guard turned football wide receiver, became a player who has played against Kentucky at both Kroger Field and Rupp Arena.
In hoops, Hill averaged 13.4 points a game for Murray State’s 31-3 team in 2021-22. He went on to play a season of basketball for both LSU and Loyola Marymount.
While at LSU in 2022-23, Hill played 13 minutes for the Tigers and missed all three of his shots in a 74-71 loss to UK at Rupp Arena.
At Kroger Field on Saturday, the 6-foot, 170-pound Hill caught one pass for 9 yards.
For the season, Hill has caught 23 passes for 328 yards and two touchdowns.
Fashion police
For its 10th game of the 2024 season, Kentucky wore white helmets, blue jerseys with white letters and numbers and white pants.
Since the start of the 2020 season, UK is now 3-1 in white, blue, white.
This story was originally published November 16, 2024 at 5:07 PM.
