3 Obvious Reasons Why Kentucky's Loss to South Carolina Sucked

by:Nick Roush•09/10/24•

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Bush Hamdan Talks Loss To South Carolina

Kentucky was a nine-point favorite over South Carolina. The Wildcats only scored six points, completed six passes, and lost by 25 points. It sucked. You know that. I know that. We don’t need to beat a dead horse.

Before completely turning the page to Georgia, Mark Stoops spent his Monday talking about the Kroger Field catastrophe. He entered his press conference prepared and did not shy away from any challenging questions. The same could be said when the first caller on his radio show asked him why he brought Wollford back after the offensive line coach ditched the Cats, then let Jalen Milroe get sacked more than any other SEC quarterback.

Stoops ate some bullets on Monday following the awful loss to South Carolina, but it’s not making the defeat feel any better.

It’s South Carolina

Mark Stoops propelled Kentucky up the SEC pecking order by owning South Carolina. The Gamecocks brought in the son of a coaching legend who you were supposed to dominate. Instead, the once one-sided series has been flipped into a losing rivalry for the Wildcats.

Shane Beamer has won three straight games against Kentucky. He might be the most hated coach in the entire BBN. That’s a tough pill to swallow. But you cannot write it off as a fluke because Will Levis was injured, Kentucky just keeps taking losses to Beamer’s South Carolina Gamecocks and this time they took away your chance to host College Gameday for just the second time ever.

It Doesn’t Get Any Easier

Stoops handled himself well on Monday, but he let one quote slip in that didn’t sit well with just about anybody who cheers for his team. “I think we get to play four of the top six in the coming weeks. That’s a joy,” he deadpanned.

Most folks reacted similarly. “Quit whining! You get paid $9 million.” This is the SEC. What do you expect?” You may see that as ducking a challenge. Let’s look at it through another lens.

What are we going to learn about the Cats against Georgia? They’ve won 41 regular season games in a row. Even if Kentucky plays hard, you can’t give them a moral victory for covering a big spread after the egg they laid against South Carolina. As Luckett wrote about in the Monday Huddle, the way the schedule is set up, we will be waiting until October until the barometer can truly reflect who this team is.

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There are No Obvious Answers for Kentucky

During his 90 minutes of public speaking engagements on Monday, Mark Stoops made it clear that he feels our pain. He was just as confounded by what unfolded on Saturday as you were. While knowing that he’s one of us may initially be comforting, it’s not exactly reassuring that he didn’t see this coming.

Here’s the thing — nobody knew that this Kentucky team was capable of a performance like the one we saw on Saturday. That’s the message Eli Cox shared with Mark Stoops privately on Sunday. It was also evident by the lack of answers the offense had for the South Carolina defense. Bush Hamdan didn’t have a Plan D in the event that he could not simply call a pass play.

When the passing game failed to take flight in the past, there were obvious reasons why. The quarterback was injured or there wasn’t enough skill talent at wide receiver. The transfer portal can quickly correct those mistakes. As we’re currently learning, finding transfer portal fixes in the trenches is much more challenging. Stoops brought Wolford to Kentucky to provide a long-term solution from the high school ranks, but that’s not going to help the Cats this Saturday against Georgia.

So what exactly can Stoops, Hamdan, and Brad White do to make sure Saturday’s performance is not repeated this fall? Those are the difficult questions they get paid just shy of $11.5 million to answer.