Liam Coen explains how Kentucky must respond after getting 'butts kicked' vs. Georgia

Kentucky came back to the bluegrass defeated this weekend after Georgia blew them out on Saturday night. Now, as OC Liam Coen sees it, it’s on the Wildcats to respond, and respond well, heading out of that game and into their next one.

Coen made himself clear during his postgame press conference after the Bulldogs hammered UK by a score of 51-13. The fact of the matter is that, in his words, Kentucky “got (their) butts kicked” and it’s now time to see what they, as a team and as an offense, are made of with how they answer to what happened to them.

“We need to have a hard reset. I mean if you look at it? We got our butts kicked – flat out. We got our butts kicked,” Coen stated. “When you get your butt kicked, there’s not a lot of people to blame. We’ve all got to look in the mirror, we all have to reset. Players, coaches. All of us on the offensive staff and players as well.”

“If you can’t respond from this one, it’s going to be tough to respond from anything in life,” said Coen.

Neither side of the ball played well for Kentucky in Athens over the weekend.

Still, to focus on Coen’s unit, the Wildcat offense didn’t work at all. They scored a season-low of 13 points and accumulated their worst yardage of the season at just 183 overall.

UK did find the endzone twice but, all in all, it was an inefficient night across the board. QB Devin Leary completed just 38.5% of his passes while their three backs rushed for just 3.6 yards per carry.

Kentucky is going to have to pick itself up off the mat quickly with a big game against Missouri coming up this weekend. That leaves it up to everyone in Lexington, including Coen and the offense, to step up to the challenge and be much better this time out than they were the last time.

Mark Stoops disappointed in performance of Devin Leary

Kentucky QB Devin Leary hasn’t exactly been what some would have hoped this season after he transferred to UK in the offseason. Following his latest outing this weekend, Mark Stoops expressed a bit of agreement with that opinion considering how his quarterback played.

Stoops had some critiques of Leary on Saturday night following UK’s 38-point loss at No. 1 Georgia. He first closed any idea that the health of his QB1 as being the issue as there’s not been anything he has seen yet that would suggest that’s the case.

“I mean, yeah, I believe he’s okay. I would have no reason to believe he’s not,” Stoops said.

That’s when Stoops’ comments took a more negative turn as, frankly, he described himself as “disappointed” in Leary’s play. The fact of the matter was that, to him, his vision and accuracy were not where they needed to be in Athens against the Bulldogs

“Yeah, I was a little disappointed myself,” admitted Stoops. “Usually I don’t say a whole lot during a game to a quarterback to not get him off, you know? But there’s no excuse to not hit some of those passes. I mean we got some guys wide open.”