One loss becomes two as Kentucky falls to South Carolina

That was zero fun for the home team. For the first time since 2012, South Carolina will leave Lexington victorious, and Shane Beamer’s squad did it with relative ease after halftime.

Behind a dominant night from the kicking game to go along with 190-non sack rushing yards, the Gamecocks took control of the game in the second half, and Kentucky could never counter back in time.

For the 10th year in a row, a Mark Stoops Kentucky team has lost consecutive games in a season and needs to get Will Levis back on the field as quickly as possible.

Brutal starts

Kentucky has not started games well this season. Even when the Cats have scored on their opening script, the offense received the ball trailing by a touchdown after the defense gave up an opening score to Miami (Ohio) and Northern Illinois.

The first-quarter and third-quarter starts were horrific for the Big Blue.

On the first snap of the game, Kentucky put the ball on the turf on an attempted reverse giving South Carolina a goal-to-go opportunity on their first possession of the night. MarShawn Lloyd immediately put the road team up 7-0.

After Kentucky fought back and statistically won the first 30 minutes, South Carolina took the ball 75 yards in six plays to go up 14-7 to begin the third quarter to win the important Middle 8 by seven. From that point forward, it felt like it was going to be very hard for Kentucky to win.

A bad start to begin both the first and second half put the Cats in a hole that they could not climb out of with an offense that was limited without Will Levis.

Kentucky got handled in the kicking game

South Carolina entered the Week 6 contest at Kroger Field owning the best special teams unit in the country. The Gamecocks certainly looked the part in the 24-14 win.

Carolina dominated Kentucky in average starting field position (own 42 to own 23), and a lot of that had to do with the kicking game. The Gamecocks blocked their fifth punt of the season in the first quarter, did not give Barion Brown an opportunity to return a kick, and had a kick return of 24 yards to go with a punt return of 18 yards.

The Cats had a poor net punting average (36.4 yards) and missed another field goal that was hindered by a poor snap. The third phase is becoming a big problem, and there seems to be a major blunder every week.

The kicking game needs to get fixed very, very soon.

Pass protection woes continue

It very much looked like the first career start for redshirt freshman Kaiya Sheron at quarterback. The Somerset (Ky.) High product finished the game 15 of 27 for 178 yards and two touchdowns but posted a poor success rate (33.3%). That was before you threw in the sacks.

The young quarterback was brought down six times in 33 dropbacks for an absurd sack rate of 18.2 percent. Kentucky’s offensive line has allowed 25 sacks this season. Some fall on the quarterback for not getting rid of the football, but the offensive line has some real issues.

The offense’s biggest weakness is not any better after six games.

Kentucky’s defense took a step back in the second half

Kentucky’s offense immediately put the Cats in a hole by handing South Carolina a touchdown to start the game. After that, Brad White’s defense delivered.

In five consecutive possessions to end the first half, Kentucky created two scoring opportunity turnovers and produced another turnover on downs just over midfield giving up zero points. But it all fell apart after halftime.

South Carolina scored 17 points in their first three possessions after the break and drove over 70 yards each time. Kentucky had its worst tackling performance of the season and could not give the offense enough chances in the second half to win the game.

It felt like the dam finally broke after a very strong start to the year for this defense.

Kentucky has not reached 20 offensive points in an SEC game

Let’s first talk about the good — Kentucky established the run on Saturday. The Wildcats recorded 175 non-sack rushing yards on 5.8 yards per attempt. Chris Rodriguez Jr. led the way with 126 yards on 22 attempts with a superb success rate (63.6%). The All-SEC tailback was awesome, but the offense still couldn’t put scores together.

Rich Scangarello’s offense could only muster 14 points in 12 possessions against a South Carolina defense that was gutted by Arkansas and Georgia in previous conference games. We’ve seen Kentucky in three SEC games, and the offense has only scored 52 total points. Through six total games, the offense has not scored more than 31 points in a single game.

Kentucky appears to have one of the worst offenses in the SEC. That shouldn’t be the case with an All-SEC running back and a pro quarterback who is averaging 10 yards per attempt. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t lie.

The offense has been a huge disappointment through six games and must get fixed immediately. Getting Will Levis back in the lineup will help, but Kentucky’s first-year play-caller has a group that is committing way too many procedure penalties and not finishing drives when scoring opportunities arrive.

Kentucky has a lot to fix. There is too much talent on the roster for this offense to not be scoring points.