Despite a strong start to Saturday’s game against the #20 Ole Miss Rebels, the Kentucky Wildcats yet again came up short in a crucial early-season SEC matchup.
The Wildcats got off to an early 10-0 lead over the Rebels thanks to two interceptions by Lexington native DB Ty Bryant. From that point on, the Cats were outscored 30-13 the rest of the way by the Rebels of Ole Miss, who dropped them to 1-1 (0-1).
Miscommunications between the coaches and players led to Kentucky using all three first-half timeouts,
which was absolutely embarrassing and unacceptable. The offense was so confused that the ESPN commentary even had to call them and the coaching staff out due to the poor communication.
A rare bright side for the offense in Saturday’s game was New Mexico State transfer RB Seth McGowan. He rushed for 93 yards and scored the Wildcats’ only two TDs of the game.
Kentucky’s next game is Saturday night at home against the 0-2 Eastern Michigan Eagles, which is a great opportunity for this out-of-sync offense to snap out of it and head into the bye week with something to carry over into SEC play.
This is what needs to go on from here for the Wildcats if they hope to have any kind of success moving forward:
Defense remains consistent
The Wildcat defense hasn’t disappointed in the first two games of the season, and that will need to carry over the rest of the way if Kentucky wants to have a chance to go bowling or even beyond expectations.
Even against a high-powered offense like Ole Miss, Kentucky’s defense showed it’s more than capable of going toe to toe with great offenses, largely thanks to their front seven creating havoc while the secondary takes advantage of passes thrown under pressure.
In fact, Pro Football Focus currently has Kentucky graded as the 13th-best defense and tied for the sixth-best run defense in college football.
Alex Afari, Ty Bryant, and the Wildcats’ defense have been up to the challenge so far, but they also need lots of help from the other side of the ball.
Passing game gets in sync
There have been 25/26 SEC QBs who have thrown a TD pass through the first two weeks of the season. The one QB that isn’t on this list is Zach Calzada. Calzada is 25/53 and is only passing for 234 yards through the first two games of the season without a TD.
The O-line and the running game have not been the problem; it’s the lack of communication between the QB, the receivers, and the coaching staff that has been abysmal.
Despite all that, the Wildcats were still able to stay in the game when it always looked like they should’ve been down more than they should’ve been this past Saturday. That’s a huge credit to how good the defense has been for the majority of the first two games, but that will only get you so far without a solid passing attack. That’s been the moral of the story throughout half of Coach Stoops’ 13-year tenure in Lexington.
Now that brings me to the next topic at hand.
Change at QB?
It’s obviously not a secret that the Zach Calzada experiment through the first two games has been a major disappointment, but the most important question next up is whether it’s time for a QB change this early into the season.
I think the answer to that is an obvious yes, not only because of what we saw out of Cutter Boley against Texas and Murray State at the end of last season, but most importantly because of how close the QB battle was before the start of this season. We saw Boley late in Saturday’s game due to Calzada having to leave due to a shoulder injury.
Boley drew a defensive PI as soon as he came into the game, and showed his ability to run, and also completed a great pass to Hardley Gilmore IV late in the game. That was his only completed pass out of three attempts throughout that game, but we not only saw what he could really do at the end of the season last year, but we also saw what he’s capable of doing in his short stint this past Saturday.
To me, the little minutes he got against Ole Miss showed more promise than what a lot of fans saw out of Calzada the last two weeks as a whole. We don’t know the severity of Zach Calzada’s injury going forward, but regardless I think it’s time to give Cutter Boley an early shot and Saturday night’s game is the perfect game to get him started.
