Kentucky Offense Couldn't Generate Explosive Plays Against Georgia
Mark Stoops learned his team had some resolve in the loss to Georgia. The offense moved the ball efficiently against one of the best defenses in the nation. They just couldn’t punch the ball into the end zone.
Kentucky out-gained Georgia and nearly doubled up the Dawgs with 23 first downs to Georgia’s 12. The Cats only had one turnover and they converted 9 of 16 third down attempts. The most impressive feat was the effort from the run game. Kentucky had 212 non-sack rushing yards for 5.0 yards per carry.
“You know, 23 first downs against Georgia is hard to do. Obviously, we needed to cap one of those with a touchdown. That’s where we needed to finish it off one more possession, one more field goal might have done it as well but we didn’t get the stop,” said Mark Stoops.
“That’s how we want to be. We want to be balanced but it always starts with us with a physical run game. We dressed it up a lot and a lot of pre-snap motions and different things and we tried to put a lot of pressure on the defenses pre-snap. There’s a lot of formations and motions and shifts and there is a lot going on there. But it comes back to blocking, pad level, not getting penalties, backs hitting the holes, running hard. And yeah, I was proud of the effort. I felt like it was a big improvement the way we played.”
“I’m proud of our guys and the way we ran the ball but we gotta work to become a complete offense,” said offensive coordinator Bush Hamdan.
So what was missing? Explosive plays, particularly in the passing game. Kentucky only threw for 114 yards and the Wildcats had zero plays of 20+ yards.
“I think it’s going to come down to — we took care of the football most of the night — but creating explosives. That’s the biggest thing is just, the 5-yard plays are going for five yards. We gotta find ways to create some bigger chunk plays and obviously that’s the one in this game we’re going to feel the most,” said Hamdan.
Georgia Refused to Let Kentucky Take Shots
The Georgia secondary is pretty, pretty good. Filled with future pros, Kirby Smart’s scheme is designed to take away explosive plays and nobody knows that better than Brock Vandagriff.
“Obviously, when you have Barion (Brown) and Dane (Key), dudes who can take the top off on the outsides, they’re not going to give you those one-on-one matchups a lot,” said Vandagrifd.
“As you could see, we had a couple shots dialed up. The corner bails into a deeper zone and you gotta take what they give you, check the ball down. Sometimes if you’re running out of time in the pocket, you gotta make sure to get the ball out of your hands… You just gotta take what they give you and try to stay on task, stay on schedule.”
Kentucky stayed ahead of the chains for most of the night despite the pressure from the Georgia defense. Vandagriff saw the blitzes early and often. Backed up into his own end zone, he did not flinch, stepping up in the pocket and tucking the ball for a long run that proved he was unfazed by last week’s performance against South Carolina.
“I thought that was as resilient a performance as I’ve seen from a quarterback in a long time,” said Hamdan. “His athleticism to extend plays there all night kept us in drives. He gave us a chance and that’s really all we can ask for.”
Kentucky found some offensive success, but they still have not scored a touchdown in the last two games. The Cats have found a recipe for success that needs an extra explosive ingredient.
“I don’t think there’s huge overreactions,” said Hamdan. “This offense has been successful for a lot of years. The biggest thing right now is confidence, continuing to build the confidence of the guys across the board at different positions who 2-3 weeks ago weren’t in the spot they’re in now. You certainly can do that by limiting a ton of scheme and giving them things they’re familiar with and things we’ve done over and over again. There’s some self-reflection there. We did do some things today that will hopefully get us to the point of taking that next step.”
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