Monday Huddle: Kentucky must show resiliency

The 2024 Kentucky football team was hit with a haymaker early. After clearly passing the look test in Week 1, the Wildcats were stunned by South Carolina on Saturday afternoon at Kroger Field. Not much went right for Mark Stoops and his team.

One week after the disappointing performance, Kentucky will host No. 1 Georgia in a prime-time game on ABC. A bad Week 2 could turn into a bad Week 3 very quickly. The Wildcats are not in a good place and are currently behind the eight-ball playing a schedule that includes what appears to be four top-10 teams: Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Texas.

Things could unravel quickly unless this group can show some resiliency. KSR’s Monday Huddle is resetting the table to see where the program might go from here after a stunning and shocking defeat in Week 2.

First Down: All eyes on the offensive line

We will get to the defense shortly but the biggest talking point this week will be about Kentucky’s offense and the woeful performance we saw on Saturday. The Wildcats found some success in the traditional run game with Demie Sumo-Karngbaye and Jason Patterson combining to rush for 115 yards on 27 carries with a 63 percent success rate but that was the only thing done well.

The passing game was a disaster mostly due to protection. In total, Kentucky had 22 passing plays (17 pass attempts, 5 sacks) and ended three total yards gained from those snaps when removing sack yardage. Three total yards on 22 snaps in the passing game is no way to live.

Once again, we are in another Kentucky football season with major concerns about the passing game. But this time we know Kentucky has receivers. What is really concerning is the protection. The offensive line looks like the program’s biggest weakness through eight quarters of football.

According to PFF data, Brock Vandagriff was pressured on nine of 14 dropbacks. Gavin Wimsatt was pressured on four of eight dropbacks. Kentucky simply could not keep the pocket and that turned into a disaster.

Starting left tackle Marques Cox had the worst game of his Kentucky career allowing two sacks and six pressures at left tackle. Gerald Mincey was cleaner at right tackle but had two penalties. Junior college transfer Anfernee Crease was pulled quickly at right tackle after playing only four snaps. Dylan Ray played most of the game spending time at right guard, left guard, and right tackle but allowed two pressures in 20 pass rush snaps and also had a penalty. Things did not go much better in pass protection for the other players on the line.

Kentucky has proven they can run the football again through two games and the downhill run blocking certainly does look improved but the five offensive line penalties and constant pressure on the quarterback simply did not give the offense a chance to operate efficiently.

Vandagriff looked overwhelmed in his first career SEC start but it’s hard to be too critical. Kentucky has to play better at the line of scrimmage. If they cannot protect this offense might have to get super run-heavy to survive.

Do we see improved protection against a talented Georgia front? Do we see a different method of attack after the jet motion series was unsuccessful against South Carolina? New offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan must find some answers and it starts with the offensive line room.

Second Down: Passing defense is a problem again

Kentucky finished last season ranked sub-100 in passes defended per game (No. 105), success rate (No. 123), and completion percentage (No. 127). The Wildcats did a fair job at eliminating explosives, but teams stayed ahead of the chains by completing short passes for good gains consistently. Finding a way to fix this problem was a big emphasis in the offseason.

The Wildcats added a transfer at cornerback and safety. Five players who played over 290 snaps in the secondary all returned. Mark Stoops and Brad White both mentioned the need to be more aggressive and playing man coverage. That was expected to help the Wildcats improve on third down.

South Carolina was just three of 10 on third down but two third-and-long conversions directly turned into consecutive touchdown drives for the Gamecocks. With the game in the balance in the third quarter, Kentucky’s defense was unable to make key situational plays to keep the team in the game.

Through eight quarters, opposing quarterbacks are completing 71.4 percent of their passes and averaging 8.3 yards per attempt. The Wildcats are giving up way too many completions and we’ve seen a higher explosive rate (22.9%) than in the past few years. Kentucky has not fixed its down-to-down passing defense issues yet and is giving up more explosives. That is a recipe for disaster.

That pass defense will be put to the test on Saturday facing Georgia quarterback Carson Beck. The potential future No. 1 pick is completing 70.7 percent of his passes and enters this week averaging nine yards per attempt.

Kentucky must find some answers to bolster the pass defense and they need to find them soon.

Third Down: What is the ceiling/floor now?

The 2024 schedule was always going to give this Kentucky team a potential low season when it comes to the win/loss record. The Wildcats draw four top-10 teams and play three of them away from home. The home game is against No. 1 Georgia. Without a win in one of those games, the best this team could do is 8-4.

Now is the ceiling 7-5? What is the floor?

Saturday night at Kroger Field will be about showing that this football program has a certain level of pride and fight to bounce back after a dismal performance where Kentucky caved under some in-game adversity again. But we all know that the Wildcats probably will not be the team to end Kirby Smart‘s 41-game regular-season winning streak. This is really becoming a four-game season that will not start until October in games against Vanderbilt (home), Florida (road), Auburn (home), and Louisville (home). Assuming Kentucky handles its business against Ohio and Murray State, there only appear to be a few winning opportunities.

A 7-5 record seems like the ceiling. A 5-7 or 6-6 record is probably the most likely scenario. Kentucky will get multiple chances to flip the narrative in four contests against top-10 opponents but odds are high that this will end up becoming a third consecutive disappointing season in Lexington. That is not a good program trend for a roster that likely will have at least six NFL Draft picks and likely more come April.

The South Carolina contest was the biggest swing game on the schedule and the Wildcats blew it. Where do they go from here? It’s a long season that we likely will not reveal any real answers until October. In the meantime, Kentucky must start showing improvement to show the bad doesn’t start getting uglier. That first opportunity arrives this weekend.

The week ahead at KSR

The first SEC game week is here, and KSR will provide the Big Blue Nation with in-depth pregame content from now until kickoff arrives on Saturday night.

We will have full coverage of Mark Stoops’ press conference on Monday before breaking down the second depth chart of the season. From there, practice reports and daily podcasts will take over as Saturday quickly approaches.

Over at KSR+, we will have our in-depth scouting report on Georgia published on Thursday along with some more pregame content before the games finally start. It’s time to get this party started.

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Kentucky has put itself in a big hole and this week could show us if the program is willing to do what it takes to climb out of it. Week 3 has nothing to do with Georgia — it’s about Kentucky showing us they have some resiliency and that there is at least a chance this football team can turn this season around. The next three weeks will tell us where this program’s culture is before the critical stretch begins in October.