Flush the South Carolina loss, and Kentucky football looks really strong

The Ole Miss Rebels went into South Carolina and dominated them in all phases of the ball game. This creates a weird dilemma for Kentucky. The team that whooped them is the team that just got whooped by the team that Kentucky upset.

That's a bit of a twisted way to put it, but to spell it out, Kentucky's first loss of the season was to South Carolina, and it wasn't even close. South Carolina beat the Wildcats 31-6 in Lexington. The Wildcats proceeded a couple of weeks later to beat Ole Miss on the road in a stunning upset, 20-17. Today, Ole Miss went on the road to South Carolina and dominated South Carolina. So you can see, the team, South Carolina, that dominated Kentucky is now getting dominated by the team, Ole Miss, that Kentucky beat.

Kentucky also has a near upset to the Georgia Bulldogs, who were ranked #1 in the nation at the time. This is actually still a good thing on the resume. They lost 13-12, and if a controversial pick-six wasn't overturned, it could easily have been a win on their resume.

Thus, we need to do something, and it's essential. We need to flush the South Carolina game. If that game is in our minds, we don't know whether Kentucky is good or not. But without it, flushed out—take it as an anomaly, as a fluke—this Wildcats team becomes a lot clearer. They are good. They are really good.

If we truly flush the South Carolina game, the stats won't change a whole lot except for in the passing game. Their yards per game go up about 45 yards, but mostly due to the passing attack. That statistic changes from 170.4 yards passing a game to 202. The rushing is only nominal, with about three more yards per game.

The Kentucky defense is already one of the best in the country, ranking 9th in defensive yards allowed before this week's set of games. It doesn't change a whole lot when you flush the game, as they are averaging 244 yards per game allowed this season, and it drops to 238 without the South Carolina game.

Thus, the stats don't really change a whole lot, but the perception of Kentucky does with a win over South Carolina. And I think putting that game out of our minds, we now have only one loss against a top team in the country, and it was close. We also have a top-10 win on our resume. This allows us to see Kentucky as a great team.

The bad news is, you can't actually flush a game. The good news is, a couple of losses in the SEC won't kill a resume, and truly if somehow Kentucky can run the tables the rest of the season, the college football playoff isn't even out of reach. 10-2 and 9-3 are still in play.

We can flush the loss in our brains about how we perceive this team, and so let's do that. Let's look at the rest of the season as a possibility instead of dread. This next game against Vanderbilt will be a real test as they have now given Missouri a shock and pulled off the greatest upset of the season over #1 Alabama in consecutive weeks.