An uninspired, listless, lethargic and unprepared Kentucky football team nearly became FBS victim No. 8 of the season, but the Wildcats managed to fend off FCS member Chattanooga 28-23 on Saturday to remain unbeaten in three games.
Kentucky (3-0, 1-0) ran its winning streak against non-conference teams to 13 straight which is the third-longest in the nation but had to hold on for dear life. That was due in part to three turnovers by quarterback Will Levis who tossed two interceptions and fumbled it away on fourth down.
In a game that should have been a rout instead turned into a play for your life and season for UK.
Kentucky football fights off listless effort to remain unbeaten holding off Mocs
Mark Stoops was clearly irritated the entire game with his team’s performance but he had warned of this earlier this week.
"“Obviously the best thing about this, sitting right here, is we’re 3-0. But not very pleased, just got to be better in all areas starting with myself. The staff, the players, I want to credit them. I knew early in the week, as I told you, that that’s a very good football team, very well-coached, that wasn’t going to beat themselves and they certainly didn’t.”"
When I previewed the game I said:
Kentucky’s offense needed to stop the miscues and spread the wealth around getting more players involved.
Fail. Another game with three miscues, poor execution, and while a few players did get needed touches most of the team failed to execute.
I said the defense needed to get into the Mocs backfield and wreak havoc with sacks and tackles for loss.
Fail. ZERO sacks of Connor Copeland and just five tackles for loss that amounted to 10 total yards.
Special teams were a mystery coming into the game and had not been tested much. Wilson Berry didn’t punt in the game instead it was Colin Goodfellow.
Pass. Well, they didn’t do anything wrong at least. Matt Ruffalo was perfect on five extra points and now has 104 career points. Goodfellow, a fifth-year former walkon booted four kicks an average of 50.5 yards, a long of 59 yards, and dropped two inside the 20-yard line.
My bottom line was simply to play smart, play clean and have fun.
Fail. Fail. Fail.
There aren’t enough paragraphs and slideshows to describe this in full detail.
Let’s take a look at the basic takeaways.