Kentucky football suffers one of worst losses under Mark Stoops ahead of hosting Georgia

LEXINGTON — To distill Kentucky football ’s futility Saturday against South Carolina is to look at one drive in the third quarter, when the Wildcats were in the shadow of their own end zone.

On first and 10 at its own 12, UK’s first-year quarterback, Brock Vandagriff , hit junior wideout Dane Key for a 25-yard gain. Only he didn’t: It came back because of offsetting penalties. (The Wildcats had an illegal shift.) On the next snap, offensive lineman Dylan Ray was flagged for holding, negating a 9-yard run by Demie Sumo-Karngbaye . One play later, another offensive lineman, Marques Cox , picked up a holding penalty to nullify a 13-yard rush by Sumo-Karngbaye.

The next two plays, the Wildcats avoided further flags.

But Vandagriff nearly was picked off both times, which would have been walk-in pick sixes for the Gamecocks .

As boos rained down from the Kroger Field stands, Kentucky punted.

When Gamecocks running back Raheim Sanders trotted in for a 6-yard score four minutes later to push the visitors’ lead to 24-6, the stands emptied.

They had seen enough.

It was that type of day for Kentucky, which left Saturday with more questions than answers offensively after a perplexing 31-6 loss that will go down as one of the worst of Mark Stoops ' tenure.

"Today it didn't look like we were a very well-coached team, and it didn't look like a team that really wanted to respond," Stoops said. "No coach speak here — that's 100% on me and on us. No excuses. They beat us in every facet, and we didn't respond. We didn't play very good, and we didn't coach very good."

While bright spots were hard to find for the Wildcats (1-1, 0-1 SEC), few had a rougher go of it than Vandagriff.

Though Vandagriff averted — narrowly — giving points to the Gamecocks (2-0, 1-0) during that flag-filled third-quarter drive, he couldn’t do the same on the subsequent possession: He tossed it into the waiting arms of South Carolina free safety Nick Emmanwori , who took it 24 yards to the house.

After that turnover, Vandagriff’s day was done.

Backup Gavin Wimsatt took over with 14:42 to play and Kentucky trailing 31-6.

The drive showed promise: Wimsatt moved the Wildcats to the visitors’ 23-yard line.

But he, too, gave the ball away, picked off by USC nickel Jalon Kilgore .

Vandagriff completed only 30% (3 of 10) of his attempts for 30 yards, no touchdowns and one interception. Wimsatt wasn’t much better with his arm; he was 3 for 7 for 14 yards and no scores and the INT. Wimsatt did provide a boost with his legs, however, carrying six times for 44 yards — well outpacing Vandagriff, who had nine rushes for negative-29 yards after South Carolina sacked him four times.

Stoops said part of the reason he removed Vandagriff from the game was to lessen the risk of further alienating an injury to his throwing shoulder.

"And then just trying to get Gavin some reps. We wanted to get them last week as well and just get him in there," Stoops said. "Clearly, we were having a hard time with pass protection, so Gavin could scramble a little bit as well and be a dual threat."

Kentucky’s offensive output Saturday amounted to a pair of field goals, on back-to-back second-quarter drives, by kicker Alex Raynor . The six-point performance came one week after Old Dominion managed 19 in its loss at South Carolina.

The news doesn’t get any better for the Wildcats.

National powerhouse Georgia comes to town next week. The country’s top-ranked team, Georgia trounced Tennessee Tech , 48-3, on Saturday. The victory marked the Bulldogs ’ 41st consecutive regular-season triumph dating back to its most recent setback in 2020. Kirby Smart ’s club is 48-2 in its past 50 contests overall, with both losses to Alabama.

Georgia has been equally dominant against Kentucky.

The Bulldogs enter next week’s game having won 14 straight meetings versus the Wildcats. UK’s last win over UGA was in 2009 ; its last home victory over Georgia was 2006 . Stoops has never beaten the Bulldogs, carrying an 0-11 record into this season’s matchup.

He and his team have numerous issues to fix. And not much time to fix it with the country's most dominant program on tap.

"It comes down to disciplined execution. You have to strain, you have to play hard," Stoops said. "But that's during the week. That's in the little details in doing things right and being mentally strong and physically strong and then (competing) when we're out there.

"You don't know what's gonna happen come game time. Wild things happen, and you have to respond. And we didn't respond very well today."

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky football suffers one of worst losses under Mark Stoops ahead of hosting Georgia