Kentucky Coaches Defend Decisions for End of Half, Final Drive Play-Calling

There’s one play that everyone around the country is questioning — the decision to punt the ball to Georgia on 4th and 8 with three minutes remaining — but in each game, there are three or four others that will determine the final outcome. The Kentucky coaches were steadfast in their decision-making process about a few other critical moments from the 13-12 loss.

Kentucky Kicked a Field Goal to End the Half

The ballgame was tied at three when the Wildcats got the ball with just under four minutes to play until halftime. Kentucky went on a 13-play drive to get the ball to the 15-yard line with nine seconds on the clock and no timeouts remaining. The offense lined up to take a shot at the end zone. Kirby Smart called a timeout. When the teams returned to the field, Kentucky lined up to kick a field goal.

“I’m not 100% positive on this but I think there’s been 29 passes completed in the red zone in the last three years against Georgia. I wanted points,” said head coach Mark Stoops.

“We did take some chances. It was going to be hard sledding. We would take complete momentum away from us if we get a strip-sack or a fumble or don’t go in at (half with) the lead. I thought our offense did a hell of a job possessing it, driving it, and giving us a chance. It’s not like we were giving up on that. That’s some hard sledding man.”

The Wildcats got the ball first to start the second half and put together another 61-yard drive that resulted in a field goal. Bush Hamdan wanted to turn three points into seven, but he agreed with the head coach’s decision to take the points before halftime.

“Through that first half, the way our defense was playing, I think all those decisions are the right decision. They really are,” said Hamdan.

“The other part of that too is based off the coverage you might get in that situation. The ball is on the 15-yard line with only a play or two, it’s hard to not go and take those points in a game like this against the No. 1 team in the country. We did what we had to do in certain situations to take those points, obviously, we gotta turn three into seven pretty quickly.”

Why Did the Cats Pass Late in the Game?

Two plays before the fateful punt, Hamdan put the ball in Brock Vandagriff‘s hands. Up until that second and eight, the Cats had two incomplete passes but had moved the ball efficiently on five runs. Why abandon the run on the fringes of field goal range?

“I wanted to be aggressive. I didn’t want to put us in a situation where we were in another third down. We thought we had been in that personnel group and ran the ball a good amount. We liked the shot and we took it,” said the Kentucky offensive coordinator.

Kentucky had an open receiver from the run-heavy personnel package, but Georgia applied pressure from the interior and got hands in the passing lanes to bat the ball to the ground. Faced with another obvious passing situation, Georgia swatted the second pass to the ground and there went the Kentucky offense’s best chance to make a game-winning score.