Mark Stoops bungles the end of the first half for Kentucky in the game against the Ohio Bobcats

It was an absolutely sloppy end to the half; when Kentucky could have added more points, they came away with nothing. It was a clinic on how NOT to end a half of football, and basically, all of it was controllable. Stoops already has a poor reputation for clock management, and this certainly did not help his case.

The Kentucky Wildcats got the ball back with 1:36 on the game clock at the Kentucky 9. Here was the sequencing to get into field goal range:
-QB Brock Vandagriff ran for 13 yards.
-Demie Sumo-Karngbaye ran for 7 yards.
-Demie Sumo-Karngbaye ran for 7 yards (yes, he did it twice back-to-back).
-Vandagriff completed a 17-yard pass to Sumo-Karngbaye.

Kentucky is now at the Ohio 47-yard line with 46 seconds to go in the half. Kentucky has two timeouts, and the goal is to get points. It doesn't have to be a touchdown, but a field goal at this point feels like a strong likelihood and is clearly Stoops' goal.

On the next play, Vandagriff ran for no gain as he was trying to make something happen. A timeout was called to preserve the clock with 40 seconds to go. It's now 2nd and 10.

Things got a little confusing here as a couple of things happened in this play. The play was blown dead, but there was some discrepancy on whether the play should have happened at all. That would derail us from this conversation, so let's point out the result of the play. It was a personal foul penalty against Ohio, and the chains advanced for a first down for Kentucky, and the ball was at the Ohio 32 with 34 seconds to go. Kentucky has one time-out left.

Vandagriff decides to scramble again for 4 yards on this next play, and Kentucky gets to the Ohio 28, which is definitely field goal range. Stoops calls his final timeout instead of spiking the ball, and now there are no timeouts left, and there are 26 seconds left in the half.

This is when it goes from bad to worse, as Vandagriff throws an incomplete pass and then takes a delay of game on the next play. Now it is 3rd and 11 at the Ohio 33 with 19 seconds to go. It's become very sloppy very quickly, and to cap it off, Vandagriff is sacked and fumbles with no timeouts. Kentucky recovers it, but the clock is expiring, and now it is 4th down, so you can't spike it. Stoops tries to run out of the field goal unit, but the clock expires while they are setting up. It's an ugly way to end the first half, and Stoops has to be better in those situations.