The Cats fell to Vanderbilt Saturday night in disappointing fashion, with a final score of 20-13. Kentucky was marred with mistakes in all three facets of the game that led to heads hanging low leaving Kroger Field. Let’s take a look at the matchup and see where it all went wrong.

The first quarter ended with Kentucky having four penalties for 45 yards. To put that in perspective they were the least penalized team in the SEC with only 5.6 per game. They nearly surpassed that number in the first 15:00 minutes tonight.

It wasn’t all bad in the first half though, Demie Sumo-Karngbaye was able to punch the ball into the end zone giving Kentucky its first score of the night, tying the game up at 7-7. It felt like the tides were turning when D’Eryk Jackson picked off Diego Pavia giving him his first interception of the season but the Cats couldn’t capitalize. Between more costly penalties and a crucial Dane Key fumble on the 34-yard line the Cats just couldn’t keep any momentum going to sustain a drive to get points.

To close the half, poor clock management allowed Vandy to score and Diego Pavia took advantage of it. Going into the locker room Vanderbilt took a 14-7 lead.

Vanderbilt started the 2nd half with the football, Kentucky was able to hold the Dores to a field goal bringing the score to 17-7. Cue more Kentucky mistakes where the Cats looked to put points on the board but snap issues on special teams cost them the chance to close the gap. After some back and forth Vandy decided to go for a 50-yard field goal to extend the lead 20-7.

Late in the fourth quarter, it looked like there may just be a chance for Kentucky to steal a win when Brock Vandagriff found Dane Key for a 22-yard touchdown to bring it within 7. Unfortunately, another special teams snafu would lead to that extra point attempt never meeting Alex Raynor’s foot, leaving the Wildcats in that 20-13 hole that they would close the game with.

Costly Penalties

Kentucky committed 12 penalties for 105 yards in tonight’s game. During his post-game show Mark Stoops said “You don’t win games by being all psyched up and by being irrational, it comes down to discipline and execution”. With the number of penalties committed the execution for tonight’s game just wasn’t there.

Controlling the Clock

Vanderbilt came into Kroger field tonight and replicated what they did against Alabama last week. Sure they didn’t score 40 points on the Cats. But they did control the clock. They won the time of possession battle 34:35 to 25:25. It’s hard to score points when your offense is struggling but even harder when the other team is playing keep away as well as Vanderbilt has been doing lately.

3rd Down Conversion

Another stat that sticks out is Vandy’s success on 3rd down. They went 8 of 13 on 3rd downs against a defense that has done well at getting off the field in that situation. You have to wonder if some of the frustrations bled over into other areas of the game.

Box Score

However, the show must go on. Saturday, October 19th the Cats travel to Gainesville Florida to take on Billy Napier and his Gators. A Florida team that looked dead in the water just weeks ago took Tennessee to overtime tonight. I think we’ve learned you can’t overlook anyone this year in the SEC, hopefully, Stoops has the guys ready for a fight.