Kentucky Wildcat Football: Black Monday

You’re kicking ANOTHER field goal?!

There were significant numbers of people wearing black (and to those that didn’t: How do you have tickets and you don’t listen to anything about the game/blackout plans the whole week?), we had receivers step up and catch some balls (Matt Roark: 13 catches for 116 yards), we had our defense make plays that change games (three turnovers) and we still couldn’t win. The stage was set and the actors hit their lines perfectly, but the storybook start to the second half of the season hit a snag; the villains still did what they wanted. But they did it a different way this time. For the whole week I had believed that we were going to need to stop the run and force their quarterbacks to beat us. Well, they did. And it seems that the problems can no longer be focused on the players. The coaching this weekend was particularly disappointing for many reasons but one appears to be over all: the staff has either completely lost trust in the players’ heart or the coaches simply have lost it in themselves this season. The points debate has already been discussed this weekend, you simply can’t keep putting blips on the scoreboard when the other team is landing haymakers. I’m not sure what will be required to change the mindset this season, but as an officially frustrated fan I can tell you one thing: I would rather fail spectacularly than limp away disappointingly. Here are a few other notes from the game in no particularly order of importance or positivity.

-I’m not sure what the problem is, but a rushing QB is pure evil, black death for us. Last week I wrote about the QB controversy brewing in Starkville, and the coaches must have heard, because they deployed a two-headed monster for the Halloween weekend. Chris Relf had two rushing TD’s in the game and sophomore Tyler Russell threw for 172 yards. It’s impossible not to have noticed the futility at which the Cats have stopped running quarterbacks, but to wave it in our faces? That’s just mean. It got the the point where they were switching playcallers according to what kind of play the Dogs were going to run. Want to run a boot play with an option to run? Trot out Relf. Need some yardage? Call up Russell. Of course, in the second possession of the game the coaches decided to throw some trickery in there and actually have Relf throw the ball
(5-7 for 77 yards and a TD), which he did with moderate success but that drive cannot dictate how you play him the rest of the game. He has been benched for a reason and exposing that is the biggest part of figuring out how to beat him.
-Same note, new bullet. Since we have a safety playing linebacker for us now, and I haven’t trusted him in coverage since the second time he got torched (his second play in his career), so why not pin his ears back and send him every time we see a running QB? We may get exploited in a zone, but it’s better than watching another quarterback running all over the field. If Mississippi State is going to be so obvious with their personnel, then at least swing back.

–Maxwell Smith has already matched Newton’s completed passes and looked much better doing it. The time has come that we might have to consider the Morgan Newton project a bust. 3 years into a program with starting experience every year and his career completion percentage hasn’t gotten higher than 58%. In fact, he’s actually gotten worse this year. With a QB rating flirting with 110 at the end of last year and similar rating the year before (his freshman year), Newton currently sits comfortably under 100, at 93. Want to know Smith QB rating in a game where he got more than spot duty? 123. Call it a quarterback controversy if you want, but the only controversy here is why it hasn’t happened yet.

Things get only slightly easier this week against the Ole Miss

Black Bears

, but things will still need to improve if bowl eligibility even wants to remain a pipe dream. Get ready for some hatred from the originator of the irrationally angry football later this week.

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