Kentucky Offense Lays Egg in 31-6 Loss to South Carolina

Kentucky football fans were ready to watch the Wildcats tee off against South Carolina. It was the Gamecocks’ defensive front that made one big swing after another. South Carolina defeated Kentucky 31-6 in one of the most embarrassing losses of the Mark Stoops era.

Brock Vandagriff was terrorized early and often. The Kentucky quarterback was sacked four times, but the Gamecocks did so much more damage than that, essentially eliminating the entire Kentucky passing attack. The Wildcats’ starting quarterback completed just 3 of 10 passes for 30 yards. Bush Hamdan’s offense only generated 183 total yards.

Kentucky was unable to pass the football, which is a pretty important part of the game when you’re playing from behind. A busted coverage on the second South Carolina possession gave the Gamecocks an easy 24-yard touchdown. The lead grew to ten after Stoops tried to create some momentum by going for it on fourth and one at his own 31-yard line, but the Cats were stuffed at the line of scrimmage.

The game was still hanging in the balance early in the third quarter. The defense looked capable enough to keep it close in a low-scoring affair. Then a South Carolina wide receiver got free on a third and long. Another blown coverage on the following play gave LaNorris Sellers a second easy pitch-and-catch touchdown.

Things went from bad to worse in no time. Kentucky opened the fourth quarter deep in its own territory when Nick Emmanwori picked off Vandagriff and returned it 24 yards for a touchdown.

The day began with some much hope. Instead of getting right by taking down a hated foe, the Wildcats had an all-systems failure. With top-ranked Georgia coming to Lexington next weekend, it’s going to be hard to find much hope at all around the Big Blue Nation.

Kentucky Shows Life Before Half

A first-quarter disaster class was salvaged with a couple of field goals before halftime. Kentucky went into Run The Damn Ball mode, and like so many other times in the Mark Stoops era, it worked. Jason Patterson and Demie Sumo-Karngbaye took turns taking 11 straight hand-offs to get the Cats into the red zone before Raynor made his first three-pointer of the day.

In a shocking twist, Shane Beamer elected to play aggressively on offense with less than two minutes on the clock. J.J. Weaver stripped the quarterback on the first snap, but the ball fell into his blocker’s hands. South Carolina actually tried throwing the ball again. LaNorris Sellers air-mailed it directly to Ty Bryant for his first career interception, setting up another Raynor field goal.

Bad Fumble Luck

Kentucky stripped the ball from the quarterback three times in ten snaps. The Cats did not recover any of those fumbles.

Fall on the football!!!

When it happens once, okay. But the third quarter opened with strip sacks on back-to-back plays. Maxwell Hairston got home the first time, then Zion Childress delivered a hard hit on the following play. The ball sat on the ground for what felt like 30 seconds. If it bounced another way, Kentucky was scooping and scoring. Instead, South Carolina recovered it and was able to punt the ball out of harm’s way.

Three Straight Embarrassing Penalties

Desperate for life from the offense down 17-6 in the third quarter, the Cats gave Brock Vandagriff some time and he delivered a 20-yard gain on first down. An illegal shift wiped away the big gain.

Kentucky recovered with a 10-yard run by DSK. That was wiped away by another penalty. Air was completely sucked out of the stadium when the Cats were flagged for another penalty on the following play. Vandagriff nearly threw interceptions on the next two snaps. The game was all but lost after that abysmal sequence of events.

Kentucky was flagged 11 times and most of those penalties happened before the ball was snapped.