As the season is spiraling down for us, the reality of a 10 game SEC schedule has started to set in. Kentucky is now 3-6 after todays loss in The Swamp, and has their last game in Lexington next week.
Todays game reminded me a lot of last weeks game at Alabama. Kentucky was projected to get destroyed, but that didn't stop this team from going into both of these games fighting for their spot in the win column. Both first quarters were well, held both No.1 Alabama and No. 6 Florida to just one touchdown, and played decent in the second quarters as well, then after halftime just completely looked lost.
The first quarter versus Florida resulted in just a 7-0 lead by the Gators, then which Kentucky scored a touchdown to tie things up, plus a later field goal to put the Cats up three.
Things look to be going pretty well as they had the lead with less than a minute until halftime, which would drive that momentum into the second half and probably would have changed the outcome of the third quarter, then well, this happened.
Right before our eyes, with just 56 seconds left Florida runs back a punt to take a 14-10 lead at the half. Mike Leach said he was told that Max Duffy made a mistake, and punted the ball to the right side of the field instead of to the left which the play was planned for. Little mistakes are very costly when you're trying to upset a top-ten program.
Halftime: 14-10
The third quarter was quite the nightmare as Kentucky only managed to gain 18 yards of offense (10 passing, 8 rushing), and picked up 8 penalties that cost them 74 yards. They were also 0-3 on third downs and only attempted 5 passes in just 6.5 minutes of possession. A quarter full of flags, and letting Florida completely rack up the score with 17 points scored, pushing the Wildcats back to a 13-10 deficit.
Entering the fourth quarter, things started to look pretty bad and most of us were just wishing the time clock would never stop in hopes that this game could just end and not get any worse. Terry Wilson threw his second interception of the day, and ended up becoming a liability for Kentucky being out there, and fans were in need of a change. Mark Stoops put Joey Gatewood in to try to close out the game at ease, and would you know it, his very first pass was an interception... A game that started off so great turned for the worse as they never recovered after halftime.
Final: 34-10
I think we can all agree we're happy that we've finally made it past that four game stretch that took us into the trenches of SEC football, as we got drug through a stretch of four games that included Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Every year fans scream "we want Bama" and I'm down for a matchup with these SEC dynasties here and there if we've got the team to compete, but this just wasn't the year to do so. This team has not panned out to what they were expected to be, covid sidelines many starters, and I still don't think we ever figured out who was our QB1 as Stoops just continues to switch the three quarterbacks out.
This was definitely a different experience in Gainesville for Terry Wilson, and it brings me to a point I made earlier online; Terry Wilson secured his spot as QB1 under Stoops after that win at Florida in 2018, and now just two years later, it looks like his Kentucky career is starting to end at Florida as Kentucky is starting to prep for the future with Gatewood and Allen. Just a weird circle of life if I had to say so myself.