Jeff Drummond • CatsIllustrated
Managing Editor Edit @JDrumUK
In our regular postgame feature, the Cats Illustrated staff offers its first impressions from Kentucky's 31-6 loss to South Carolina on Saturday in the SEC opener at Kroger Field...
JUSTIN ROWLAND:
I have to feel for Kentucky football fans to start the season. So many of you spent a very long time in bad or close-to-bad weather last week only to watch a half of football. Now you watched Kentucky throttled as a favorite on its home field. The inability to match South Carolina up front in protection situations was so obvious that it's hard to imagine anyone feeling good about the rest of the season. Vandagriff looked like a shell of himself from the previous week. The defense was better than the offense but was unimpressive against a team that looked so poor against ODU last week. And Georgia comes in next week. Ouch. This game definitely changes how you think about the rest of the season. Three losses in a row to this South Carolina program is a very bad sign.
JEFF DRUMMOND:
It's been a long time since we've seen a Kentucky performance this poor relative to the strength of the opponent. The Wildcats entered this game as 10-point favorites only to be completely dominated by a South Carolina team that struggled to beat Old Dominion last week. The offensive line turned in one of the worst performances you'll ever see from a unit. The team had more penalty yardage (56) than passing yards (44). Six pass completions in modern NCAA football is an abject embarrassment. The defense hung in there for a half, but lost its focus and discipline in the third quarter. There's no way to sugarcoat this. Losing this game could derail UK's entire season. There simply aren't enough opportunities to get this one back. Unfortunately, it's the continuation of a trend with the Cats losing a home game to a team it was expected to handle going into the season. South Carolina (twice), Vanderbilt, and Missouri have all come into Lexington and left with a win in recent years. These were games that Mark Stoops was locking down in the past.
