LSU Tigers down Kentucky 35-7, Kentucky's skid hits three games

No flashbacks today

No one really could have expected UK to go down to Baton Rouge the way both teams have played this year and to walk away with a victory. But as this season goes on there have been more questions than answers and the team has not seemed to have picked up any momentum. The defense played well enough to make the game interesting but the offense never got off the ground.

LSU had just came off a game at West Virginia where they put up 49 points on the Mountaineers defense but couldn’t accumulate more than 14 first half points against the Cats. The numbers the defense were able to hold them to are more impressive if you consider that it took UK 19 minutes of game time to achieve their first 1st down. LSU’s second possession ran almost as much time off the clock (5:37) as Kentucky’s first five possessions combined (6:33). Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

Aside from the long first down drought was their inability to complete a pass. It took 24 minutes of game time for Morgan Newton to have a completed pass. This led to Max Smith getting the second half start where the staff wanted to see if he could jump start the offense. Newton has made some questionable passes this year and at times has taken too much time to make decisions on the field, but a receiving staff that can’t catch a pass won’t help any quarterback.

LaRod King, Matt Roark, and E.J. Fields were the only three receivers to have a catch in the game with Roark leading the way with four. Roark has drawn his share of ire from fans for his inability to hold on to the easy pass, but he did make a nice catch in the end zone for Cats only touchdown of the game. There seems to be a lack of confidence in any of the other receivers for the coaching staff to feel they can depend on them. In order to have this offense improve they must have more versatility in play calling and other players have to step up to get Randy Sanders’ attention.

With the anemic offense for the first five games could we be in the midst of a QB controversy? The game was nowhere near out of hand when the second half started with a 14 point deficit yet Max Smith got the nod ahead of Newton. Smith didn’t fair any better and finished the game 1 for 5 with 9 yards.

We did see a few positives out of today’s game. Freshman RB Josh Clemons showed some nice flashes again today on his way to 69 yards rushing. The offense also went the entire game with only one turnover. They also kept star LSU sophomore Tyann Mathieu from having a major impact in the game until his forced fumble on Max Smith.

All things considered, only losing 35-7 to the #1 team in the nation on the road isn’t as bad as many of us could have expected. But the opportunities were there for the Cats to capitalize but they left them on the field.

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