Well, I don’t know how many people saw that coming, but I certainly wasn’t one of them. Kentucky made the trip down to Nashville to play in a game that was as close to a must-win scenario as the team has been in this season, but they faltered against the Commodores. So what happened? The Kentucky defense was not even able to momentarily stall the Vanderbilt offense throughout the game and the Wildcat’s offense went back to their anemic ways. Vanderbilt was able to utilize a balanced attack offensively and put together a gameplan that resulted in 233 yards rushing and 207 passing yards in their dismantling of the Kentucky defense. The Kentucky offense struggled to put anything together and the heroes of the last two weeks were stifled by the Commodores defense all day long. The team appeared flat, unenthusiastic, and borderline uninterested for much of the game.
Bright Spots
-Fourth-string tailback Jonathan George put together a great performance in relief of CoShik Williams and finished the game averaging 7.7 yards per carry. He was able to pile up 46 rushing yards on only 6 attempts in this game. While Sanders and Clemons are healing up, Williams will have to fight to ensure that George does not steal more of his carries.
-After seeing very little production out of the tight ends this season, Nick Melillo was able to heavily contribute in this game and finished with 4 catches for 59 yards. While he is certainly not the most physically talented tight end on the roster, he is consistent and reliable and was able to be one of the few offensive bright spots on the team this week.
-Freshman Alvin Dupree was impressive this week in relief of the injured Ridge Wilson. He was able to get plenty of pressure on the Vanderbilt offensive line and registered a sack for a loss of 9 yards. He looks to have a very bright future for the Cats.
Room for Improvement
-After two solid outings, Maxwell Smith struggled with the Vanderbilt defense and was not the accurate passer he was against the Mississippi schools. He wasn’t horrible, but Kentucky MUST have better quarterback play to win in the SEC. It is important to remember that this was his first road start, but I think it is still fair to expect more.
-CoShik Williams has been impressive in relief of Raymond Sanders and CoShik Williams over the past few weeks, but he may have finally run into a wall. Williams really struggled to get anything going and was held to only 22 yards on 10 carries in the game.
-Matt Roark was bottled up this week after dominating the last two games. The rapport he has built with Smith has been impressive, but it was non-existent this week. He needs to step up again over the last two games and finish his senior season on a positive note.
-The Kentucky offensive line did not have a good game at all. After the unit has continually improved since the Louisville loss, they took a big step back yesterday. The running backs weren’t given ample holes to hit and Smith was on the run all day. For a unit that was supposed to be the strength of the team, they really struggled.
-The entire Kentucky defense gets placed here this week, linebackers included. The Vanderbilt offense had their way with the Kentucky defense, and that is absolutely NEVER acceptable. The defensive backs were abused by the vanderbilt receivers and the front seven was run over by the Commodores running game. Any time a team like Vanderbilt puts up numbers like they did, there are big problems to overcome.
-I have lost all remaining faith I had in the coaching staff.
GAME MVP: Who cares? You lost to Vandy by 30!