Stoops: 'No excuse' on Devin Leary's wide-open misses

Kentucky found itself down 7-0 after a quick seven-play, 75-yard touchdown drive for Georgia to open the game. Early momentum secured by the Bulldogs, but still a chance for the Wildcats to respond with a score and take the wind out of the sold-out home crowd’s sails.

Quick eight-yard scamper by Ray Davis, followed by three-yard completion to Tayvion Robinson to move the chains, then an 11-yard run by Davis for another first down into Georgia territory. A hold pushed the offense back, but a scoring opportunity still presented itself on 3rd and 15 from the UK 48 — a gift. Robinson wide-stinkin’-open down the right sideline, five yards of separation with nothing but green grass ahead to the end zone.

Clean pocket with plenty of time, egregious misfire for Devin Leary. Not even close.

“That’s one we’ve got to hit and feel good about putting yourself in scoring position,” offensive coordinator Liam Coen said after the 51-13 loss. “… Just a really, really frustrating game.”

A punt leads to a seven-play, 82-yard drive for another Georgia touchdown to go up 14-0. Momentum gone, Bulldogs go on to win 51-13. Plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the ball, highlighted by inexplicable personal foul penalties to kill offensive drives and extend them on defense. The 51 allowed points and 608 total yards didn’t magically appear on the box score, either.

It was an all-systems failure in Athens.

But the tone was set on that first offensive drive for the Wildcats, Leary’s overthrow on third down the initial brush stroke of a nightmare painting overall. That disaster of a night included just 10 completions on 26 passing attempts good for 128 yards and two touchdowns in the loss — one score coming on a 26-yard screen to Ray Davis. It led to questions regarding the NC State transfer’s physical health after the loss.

Injured? No, just poor play.

“I believe he’s OK, I would have no reason to believe he’s not,” head coach Mark Stoops said. “I was a little disappointed myself. Usually I don’t say a whole lot during a game to a quarterback to not get them off, but there’s no excuse to not hit on some of those passes. We’ve got some guys wide open.

“We missed on open plays to keep it close early, and when you add in the penalties, it gets away from you quickly. When you’re not playing good, you do stupid things, as well. Do that against the No. 1 team in the country, and it’s going to get away from you fast.”

Leary is now completing an abysmal 54.8 percent of his passes on the year with a total QB rating of 49.1, good for No. 86 in college football. 209.5 passing yards per game for 12 touchdowns and five picks. Midway through the season, the former No. 1 transfer quarterback at the time he entered the portal has rarely been the top performer at his position in any game he’s been a part of, let alone the best in the conference or the nation overall.

The passing game is broken and time is running out to get it fixed.

“(We’re) on and off,” Coen said. “I actually thought we threw the ball really well throughout the course of the week. We’ve been diligent about fixing the pass game, doing it as much possible. We only threw it 26 times, only completed ten of them. That’s obviously not where we want to be. It shows up in a game like this, none of us can miss those.”

What frustrates Coen is that the opportunities were there. Bad throws and drops along with dumb penalties cost this team a chance to keep it competitive early. And then the wheels fell off.

Is the game different if Leary finds Robinson for a touchdown on that third and long? We’ll never know, unfortunately.

“I’m frustrated that we didn’t really get stopped in the first three drives of the game. Against a team like that, you just can’t do those things,” Coen said. “Then in the second half, that’s when they play their best, the third and fourth quarters. We didn’t do anything in the third and fourth quarter besides the turnover where we scored on the second play.

“Just frustrated and disappointed for the guys. Want to be better for the guys, for each other. We’ve got to move on fast.”

No choice but to get things figured out next week at home vs. Missouri.