Three takeaways from Kentucky football’s frustrating loss at Ole Miss
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Game day: No. 14 Mississippi 22, No. 7 Kentucky 19
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s Kentucky-Ole Miss football game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Miss.
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Three takeaways from Kentucky football’s 22-19 loss at Ole Miss on Saturday:
Kentucky did not play like a top-10 team
You just can’t do it. You can’t be a top-10 team and go on the road against a top-15 team, an SEC team, and make as many mistakes as the No. 7-ranked Wildcats did Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium against the 14th-ranked Rebels.
Did the now 4-1 Cats beat themselves? Let us count the ways:
▪ Matt Ruffolo missed a makeable 39-yard field goal, had an extra point blocked and watched as his center and holder botched another extra point. That’s five points right there.
▪ Quarterback Will Levis took a safety in the second quarter when he was called for intentional grounding in his end zone. Can’t happen.
▪ UK’s defense gave up 278 yards of total offense in the first half before finally settling down in the second.
▪ With UK down three points, facing a third-and-2 at the Ole Miss 19 with under three minutes to play, Levis made a great read on a zone option, only to fumble the ball on a hit. Ole Miss recovered.
▪ Next series, after freshman burner Barion Brown took a screen pass 51 yards, Dane Key made a great catch for what looked like a 6-yard TD only to have the play wiped out by an illegal motion penalty. A wideout wasn’t set when the ball was snapped.
“Obviously, we were trying to catch them off guard,” Levis said afterward. “That’s on me.”
▪ Next play, Levis’ arm was hit as he was attempting to throw. Fumble. Ole Miss recovered. Ball game.
Even with all that, Kentucky could have/should have given Mark Stoops his first victory in 11 tries in road games against SEC West opponents. And the Cats might win their way back into the Associated Press top 10, but they did not play like a top-10 team Saturday.
Said the coach, “We didn’t play very clean. Not very precise in certain areas.”
2. Another slow start for defense
We’re starting to see a pattern here. Kentucky’s defense starts slow, then settles down and plays the way it’s capable of playing.
It happened in the opener when Miami (Ohio) scored a touchdown on its opening drive. It happened at Florida, when UK gave up 16 points in the first half, then blanked the Gators in the second half on the way to a 26-16 win in The Swamp. It happened last Saturday when Northern Illinois scored on its first drive.
At Ole Miss on Saturday, Brad White’s defense gave up four plays of 20-plus yards and 180 total yards in the first quarter as the Rebels’ high-tempo offense built an early 14-0 lead. After a punt on its first possession, Ole Miss drove 65 yards in six plays on its second possession; 79 yards on six plays in its third. The home team lead 14-6 at the end of the first quarter.
After that, Brad White’s defense bowed its back and limited Lane Kiffin’s team to a grand total of eight points — a pair of field goals to go with that safety — including a field goal in the third quarter and a goose egg in the fourth.
The problem was that allowing Ole Miss to jump to the early lead forced Kentucky’s offense to play catch-up the rest of the afternoon. That’s not the way a road team wants to play when facing an unbeaten conference opponent, one ranked 14th in the nation.
Don’t get me wrong. Kentucky still had chances to win the game. Several chances. And UK’s defense gave the Cats several of those chances — linebacker Jacquez Jones’ interception near the end of the first half; linebacker D’Eryk Jackson’s pass breakup in the end zone on a fourth-and-goal that would have put the Rebels up two scores; the three-and-out after Levis’ first lost fumble that gave the Cats one more shot at victory.
Still, you’d like to see the Kentucky defense start faster.
3. Even in Kentucky’s loss, there were some bright spots
A hat tip to Barion Brown, whose speed is flat-out sensational. The freshman returned one kickoff 85 yards before being tackled at the Ole Miss’ 15. He returned another kickoff 54 yards before being accidentally tripped up by his own teammates. And, as previously mentioned, he took a simple wide receiver screen 51 yards on Kentucky’s final drive.
As well, Levis came oh-so-close to connecting with Brown on a couple of deep balls that could have changed the complexion of the game. The Nashville native was a ray of light in ultimately a losing afternoon.
Same for the 2022 debut of Chris Rodriguez. After a four-game suspension, the All-SEC running back rushed for 72 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries in his first game back. In may ways, he looked like the Chris Rodriguez we know, turning 2-yard carries into 5-yard carries. Stoops said he thought Rodriguez got tired late. Obviously, however, offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello saw what Rodriguez can do and can now put it to good use.
You also have to credit the Cats’ resiliency. They fell behind 14-0 on the road. They continually shot themselves in the foot. They lost linebacker and leading tackler Jacquez Jones to injury not once, but twice, the second time for the rest of the afternoon. But they didn’t flinch and had a chance to pull out a win on an afternoon when they might not have deserved to win.
“Coach Stoops always talks about not beating ourselves,” Levis said. “That’s what we saw happen.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2022 at 5:47 PM.
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