Kentucky Football: Cats a victor in highlighting the SEC’s winners, losers

You can’t always judge a team after week one of the college football season, but clearly, there were some Southeastern Conference teams that rose to the occasion while others had performances that raised some Red Flags. Kentucky football thankfully was able to raise their blue one upward.

The Wildcats struggled on the game’s first two possessions, one that included Will Levins delivering a laser that was high and a bit behind receiver Josh Ali and careened off his hands into the arms of Louisianna-Monroe’s Jabari Johnson.

Then the Warhawks marched 43 yards and scored a touchdown thanks to hands to the face penalty on Kentucky. Those two bad plays had then headed into the losers brackets, but Levis and the Cats got things in gear from there and cruised to a crushing 45-10 win.

Kentucky football’s offense rolls while defense stout making them both winners

Levis put up record numbers that Kentucky fans have not seen passing in years with the Penn State transfer finishing with 367 yards passing. Josh Ali pulled 5 passes in for 136 yards and Wan’Dale Robinson 5 for 125.

Running back Christopher Rodriguez also helped move the dial into the win column with his 125 rushing yards and one touchdown.

With the victory, Kentucky has won 12 consecutive non-conference games dating back to 2018 which ranks as the third-longest active streak in the nation. The Wildcats have won eight straight non-conference games at Kroger Field.

The offensive explosion of 554 yards marked the first time UK had a 300-yard passer, two 100-yard receivers, and a 100-yard rusher in the same game since 2006 at Vanderbilt (Andre’ Woodson, Keenan Burton/Rafael Little, Rafael Little).

We won’t leave out the Kentucky defense that after surrendering that opening ULM score, forced the Warhawks to punt on their next 10 possessions.  They finished with a mere 87 total yards, which is the record books as the fewest in a game since holding Central Michigan to 78 total yards in the 1988 season opener.

Let’s suffice to say we’ll chalk the Kentucky team as a whole in the win column.

The big SEC winners and losers over the weekend will have a big effect for the Wildcats this season. Let’s see who came to play and who whiffed.