Three Plays: Lost fumble, two chunk third quarter completions sink Kentucky

After a close road loss to Ole Miss, the Wildcats returned home and got hit with a haymaker by South Carolina.

Playing without their star quarterback, the passing game was woeful for Rich Scangarello’s offense, but in many ways the Cats didn’t even give themselves a chance to win the game on Saturday. A brutal offensive start turned into some inefficient third down defense in the third quarter to sink Kentucky at home.

Let’s dive into the three plays that allowed Shane Beamer to record his first SEC road win.

Brutal start to the opening script

With Kaiya Sheron making the first start of his career, Kentucky and offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello had the element of surprise on their side. South Carolina had nothing but high school tape on the redshirt freshman quarterback as the Cats had a great shot to land a punch early with a good opening possession.

That went down the toilet quick when Kentucky put the ball on turf on the first snap of the game.

Kentucky attempts to run a reverse with Barion Brown off of a toss sweep action, but South Carolina nickel David Spaulding gets up field, takes on a block, and blows up the play.

The defensive back does a great job recording a havoc play on the first snap of the night and sets up South Carolina with a goal-to-go opportunity on their first possession. The Gamecocks were able to get a cheap score early and instantly made Kentucky do the one thing they didn’t want to do in the game — play from behind.

It was a brutal start for the offense when the Cats had a real opportunity to have success early in an SEC game for the first time this season.

Bad time for an explosive

Overall, Kentucky’s defense was very much bend but don’t break on Saturday night, but the Cats did a good job holding Carolina without points. The Gamecocks scored just 17 points on seven scoring opportunities (possession inside the opponents’s 40).

Unfortunately, Kentucky allowed a big explosive play touchdown for the second week in a row.

On the first possession of the third quarter, South Carolina faced a second-and-long at the Kentucky 42 and went to a wide receiver jailbreak screen that caught Kentucky in a bad spot.

Instead of keep inside leverage, true freshman nickel Alex Afari attacks the outside shoulder of the block giving Antwane Wells Jr. a large running lane. From there, both the right guard and right tackle do a textbook job of getting the Mike (D’Eryk Jackson) and deep safety (Tyrell Ajian) blocked. That allows Wells to go untouched for an explosive play that would put the Gamecocks up for good.

What appears to be poor technique from a young player led to an explosive play touchdown, and Kentucky’s defense immediately found itself on its heels in the third quarter.

A huge third-and-long converted

Getting off the field on third-and-long was an issue for Kentucky in last week’s 22-19 loss to Ole Miss. The Cats forced seven third-and-long situations and allowed South Carolina to move the chains on three separate occasions.

Carolina’s final long third down conversion officially put Kentucky on the ropes.

Leading 14-7 with the ball at their own 49, Spencer Rattler climbs the pocket and records a huge completion to create the third red zone possession of the game for the road underdog.

South Carolina catches Kentucky in man coverage, and a shallow cross from Jalen Brooks becomes wide open. The offense was helped out by a nice little screen from the umpire and it creates a huge play.

Kentucky was able to bow up and hold South Carolina to a field goal but the lead was stretched to two possessions with under three minutes remaining in the third quarter. The game felt over at this moment.

At the end of the game, Kentucky created more chunk plays, but two big passes directly led to 10 points, and the Cats handed South Carolina seven additional points on a huge fumble. Add those all up, and those three plays ultimately made the difference on Saturday night.