Benny Snell -- with Dan Issel, UK's all-time leading basketball scorer -- was the type of clutch player UK football has missed this year. (Gary Moyers Photo)
Mark Stoops-coached teams win football games when they run the ball effectively and often. “Run the ball” — that statement should be tattooed on a visible body part of every coach and player on the UK team — at least mentally. The facts bear this out. I’ve checked.
When Kentucky runs the ball less than 70 percent of the time per game bad things happen. Why? Because the UK plan has always been — and in my opinion will always be — establish the run game to grind the other team down, play physical defense to whip them at the line of scrimmage and in the second half of the game take over on both sides of the ball.
That plan worked well in 2018 when UK went 10-3 and it worked well last year after Lynn Bowden Jr. took over at quarterback and developed a dominant running game. It didn’t work so well when Sawyer Smith came in and ran an offense that was more pass heavy, less run oriented. Smith averaged 38 passes per game (more than 50 percent of all plays the offense ran) over three games and all three games were losses.
The same thing has happened this season. When Kentucky runs the ball effectively it wins ball games — just like they did in the second half against Tennessee. They ran out the clock as they ground down the Volunteers. That’s exactly what Missouri did to the Cats in Columbia last week — beat Kentucky at their own game. Stoops agreed when he said this about the Missouri game, “They beat us and they beat us convincingly but kind of beat us at our own game. They were more physical.”
And they were. And part of that blame falls on the coaches, but part of that blame falls on the players.
Somehow this team needs to find some leadership within the player group. Guys that are willing to step up at critical points and be physical, make one-on-one plays to win games. In your mind think back to October of 2014 and Jojo Kemp running six Wildcat plays in a row against South Carolina in a “must win” game where the whole season was teetering on the edge of a cliff and could have toppled over had Jojo not stepped up and made those plays. Those were plays where he was exhausted and begging to come off the field but the coaches left him in because he was a leader — he was pulling the team with him.
In that same game, think about Bud Dupree intercepting a South Carolina pass and running it in for a “pick six” to put the Cats up 45-38 and seal the victory. Bud Dupree was another player that could put the team on his back and drag them to a victory.
Think back to 2015 against the Tennessee Volunteers and Stephen Johnson hurtling over Tennessee defenders to score a touchdown with 33 seconds left in the game. That play came after Johnson injured his shoulder earlier in the game and had to go to the locker room for treatment. Johnson said at the time about returning from the injury to make the game winning run, “I told him (the trainer) on the sideline to just get me in there to see what’s wrong and get me right back out. I definitely was going to continue playing this game.” Little did we know that Stephen Johnson would have several surgeries after the season to repair those injuries.
And the list of players could go on and on. Benny Snell, all-time rushing leader at UK, was another player that could will his teammates to victory by continuing to run the ball and grind down the opponent’s defense while keeping the opponent’s offense off the field.
And then you have Bowden, in my opinion the best runner to ever play at the University of Kentucky. All Bowden did was make winning plays — over and over again. It didn’t matter if he was returning punts, catching passes, running the ball or even throwing the ball. Bowden was a winner and found a way to win.
That’s what this current UK team is missing. Players that refuse to lose. Players that step up in critical situations and make the big catch or big throw, that pick off the pass at just the right time or make a game saving tackle at the goal line to preserve a victory.
The puzzling part of this whole season is that this team has guys that have done it before. Terry Wilson made the game winning pass to CJ Conrad on an untimed down at Missouri two years ago to pull out an improbable victory. Josh Ali caught the game winning touchdown from Bowden last year against Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl. That was a huge program building win for UK.
But unfortunately those same players are not doing it consistently this season. No one else is consistently stepping up to help out. Sure, some guys have made great individual plays in some games. Kelvin Joseph’s “pick six” in Knoxville comes to mind. The entire second half in Knoxville the UK offensive line dominated the Volunteers. In the Mississippi State game the secondary shut out the vaunted Air Raid offense of offensive guru Mike Leach.
But it’s not happening every game. There don’t seem to be any Josh Allen’s or Lynn Bowden’s on this team. That’s why it is so critical that several players step into those shoes — the shoes that Jojo Kemp and Stephen Johnson used to fill — and provide leadership that will drag the other players along with them to victory.
Without some tremendous changes in the way these players approach practice and approach the games it is doubtful that this team can be better than 4-6 at the end of the season — and could very likely finish 3-7. That would be a horrific waste considering that this team is probably on paper, from top to bottom, the most talented team Stoops has ever had at UK.
Unfortunately they don’t play the games on paper, and that might be a lot of the problem.
— Keith Peel
