Kentucky still has to face Georgia and Tennessee later this season. Letting a game against Ole Miss slip away is a devastating moment because it severely reduces the Wildcats’ margin for error in 2022.
By Matt Zemek
Kentucky has done nearly everything it can reasonably hope to do under coach Mark Stoops. Winning national titles and making the College Football Playoff might be unreasonable expectations, but reaching a New Year’s Six bowl seems within the realm of reason, given that Kentucky has played in and won the Citrus Bowl twice in the past half-decade. Taking that one step higher felt like a goal which was within reach, but after that loss to Ole Miss, UK has no margin for error. It can afford to lose to Georgia, but now it can’t afford to lose to anyone else on the schedule, very much including South Carolina this week. The Wildcats are dealing with limitations, and we’ll talk about them in the big keys for this game.
1 – Run the ball
We don’t know if quarterback Will Levis will be able to play in this game for Kentucky. If he is able to play, he will still need help, and Kentucky will still need to run the ball to reduce the burden on Levis to make big plays. This needs to be a classic Mark Stoops game in which the defense carries the workload and the offense makes it easier for the defense to thrive. No turnovers, establish field position, and control the ball. That starts with the running game. Right tackle Jeremy Flax is hurt, which places an additional limitation on Kentucky’s offense. Running the ball and then using play action when the Gamecocks load the tackle box is the 1-2 combination Kentucky needs. It’s not about making big splash plays; it’s about getting first downs and preventing South Carolina’s offense from getting short fields or more possessions against a Kentucky defense which is also shorthanded.
2 – Next man up
Middle linebacker Jacquez Jones and fellow linebacker J.J. Weaver are less than 100 percent healthy. The bigger picture with Kentucky’s health situation is that the Wildcats haven’t yet had a week off. Teams playing into mid-October without a week off are bound to run into some attritional challenges, and UK is in the belly of the injury beast right now. This is when programs need to cultivate and lean on quality depth. Backups don’t necessarily need to carry the team, but being able to play some snaps will reduce the cumulative strain on everyone else.
3 – Red-zone offense
This is where Kentucky lost the game against Ole Miss. Play selection, execution, everything about UK’s approach on red-zone plays needs to be re-evaluated by the coaching staff. We need to see a very different set of results, and a very different level of clarity from the offensive unit.
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