Kentucky players celebrate with offensive lineman Nick Haynes waving the flag after UK's win over South Carolina Saturday night. (DeDe Haynes Photo)
By LARRY VAUGHT
The mistakes were just unbearable at times.
— With a 6-0 lead, the defense gave up a 75-yard touchdown drive.
— The next series the defense gave up a 67-yard touchdown drive.
— A 49-yard field goal to end the half was wiped out by a delay of game penalty.
— The offense couldn’t convert on third-and-one or fourth-and-one in the third quarter trailing 14-6.
— Trailing 17-6 in the fourth quarter, a pass was short to a wide-open receiver on third down and on fourth down a 32-yard field goal was off.
However, those were SOUTH CAROLINA miscues, not Kentucky mistakes. After scoring on the game’s first play to take a 6-0 lead, South Carolina made way too many mistakes and could not stop the Kentucky offense nearly enough as UK overcame a horrendous start to win 23-13.
Kentucky’s defense gave up a touchdown on the game’s first play and the offense turned it over twice in the first four minutes but the Cats never showed any signs of panic. Not by the players or the coaching staff.
“It says a lot about the defense. It didn’t surprise me. Two years ago we had a nasty start here,” Stoops said. “They didn’t shake our hands as captains. They wanted to have an edge. But we got some key stops. I knew we would settle down and start playing good football.”
Kentucky had those two long scoring drives that ended with touchdown runs by Benny Snell out of the Wildcat. Yes, the Wildcat formation that had UK fans calling for offensive coordinator Eddie Gran to abandon it — and Gran even saying this week he might in what was an obvious attempt to fool South Carolina that worked.
“This South Carolina defense is really confused by the Wildcat. The South Carolina defense can’t figure it out,” SEC Network analyst Jordan Rogers said late in the first half.
The South Carolina offense couldn’t figure out the UK defense at key times, either. The Gamecocks had nine drives into UK territory and scored just 13 points — once to start the game and once to basically end the game.
The Gamecocks put together a terrific drive late in the third quarter but on fourth and goal at the UK 1-yard line South Carolina running back Rico Dowdle got stopped by Derrick Baitty and Jamar Watson, who had just come into the game because of an injury to Eli Brown on the previous play to protect the 17-6 lead.
“I want to shout out to my whole defense. The first play of the game, I got scored on. It was nobody’s fault but mine.
When I got scored on, they picked me up and kept me going,” Baitty said on the UK Radio Network after the game. “If big plays happen, don’t flinch. That was big thing for our defense. Our offense turned the ball over, but we never let them score until the fourth quarter. It was just a great win.”
Next series the defense holds and South Carolina misses a 32-yard field goal. Kentucky responds with a six-play, 50-yard drive that ends with Austin MacGinnis booming a 44-yard field goal that might have been good for 60 yards for a 20-6 lead.
Think back to all those years when faulty special teams play cost UK games. But not this one. Instead, for the first time since UK beat Florida four straight times from 1948-51 — YES THE SAME FLORIDA TEAM THAT KENTUCKY HAS NOW NOT DEFEATED IN 30 YEARS — the Cats got their fourth straight win over a SEC team other than Vanderbilt. Despite having three straight wins over South Carolina and higher ranked recruiting classes the last three years, SEC media members picked the Gamecocks to finish above UK in the SEC East in a preseason poll and the betting line had South Carolina as a favorite. Just shows some didn’t believe in UK football — but they might now.
So what if South Carolina cut the lead to 20-13. Stephen Johnson just did what he’s done since he took over as UK’s starting quarterback. He made a play. This time it was a 54-yard sprint that set up MacGinnis’ 21-yard field goal with 2:09 left to seal the deal and set up a showdown with Florida that no true UK football fan is going to want to miss.
Johnson was 16-for-25 passing for 169 yards and ran seven times for 54 yards. Snell ran 32 times for 102 yards — his second straight 100-yard game — and two scores despite bruising his ribs last week. Garrett Johnson had four catches for 41 yards but Johnson completed passes to nine receivers.
On defense, Baitty had eight tackles, including six solo stops, and an interception to more than make up for getting beat on the opening play touchdown pass.
“We had to take the crowd out of the game. We had to go against 60,000 or 70,000 fans. They got us out of communication. But there were a lot of UK fans here fighting with us,” Baitty said.
“We know the talk about how we can’t play in the SEC. We hear it. But we are going to be fine. Shout out to BBN.”
Mike Edwards had seven tackles. Darius West, Courtney Love and Eli Brown had seven to offset UK not having leading tackler Jordan Jones, who didn’t make the trip due to a shoulder injury.
“It didn’t surprise me that Eli played well. I knew he would,” Stoops said on the UK Radio Network.
