LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Let’s start with the numbers. Not because they matter, but because they don’t.
Kentucky ran 86 plays. Texas ran 55. Kentucky had 26 first downs, Texas 8. Cutter Boley threw for 258 yards. Arch Manning looked like he just discovered football was a contact sport.
And yet, when it was over, Texas trotted off the field with a 16-13 overtime win, and Kentucky was left asking Siri for a play that works on fourth-and-1.
This is where I’m supposed to say something deep about coaching. About leadership. About the hard edge of accountability in modern college football.
But let’s cut to it:
Kentucky did a lot of things right. It is making progress. It just doesn’t finish.
End of halves. End of games. End of drives. Right now, the Cats are the football equivalent of the guy who builds a beautiful Ikea bookshelf but throws away the last two screws and wonders why it wobbles.
And when you play a close-to-the-vest style that leans on defense to put you in position to win, the plan you employ once in you’re in that position is pretty darn important.
On Saturday, Kentucky did all the hard stuff. Moved the ball. Dominated the Texas offense. Turned Arch Manning into a meme. Ran a grad seminar in time of possession.
And then, first-and-goal from the 3-yard line in overtime — the kind of “must-have-it” situation you script all spring — they came up empty.
Three plays. Nothing. Third down: a run up the middle, stopped just inside the 1.
Then came the decision. Fourth down. Six inches to go.
Rather than kick the field goal and trust a defense that had earned that trust, Mark Stoops abandoned his close-to-the-vest approach and went riverboat gambler. All in.
And promptly lost it.
They ran the same play. Again. Because when something doesn’t work, the best move is apparently to double down and do it worse. There’s a name for doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
This wasn’t new. On the first drive of the game, Kentucky faced a fourth down in the red zone. Passed on the chip-shot field goal. Ran it up the gut. Stuffed.
I know what Stoops said after the game. That he doesn’t regret the call in overtime. That he was playing to win. That they were just six inches short.
But if you're going to go for broke, you don’t play the same busted hand twice. And you certainly don’t gamble everything against the one Texas unit that had shown up — the interior of its defensive line.
Texas wasn’t scoring a touchdown in overtime. You could’ve given them a two-play head start and a map, and they weren’t finding the end zone. Manning was in the mental fetal position.
Even needing only a field goal, the Longhorns ran into a wall, committed a penalty, lost yardage — and still won, thanks to a kick two yards farther back than where they started.
Stoops knew this. It was his rationale for going for the TD and the win. But that move belied a bit of desperation.
I get it. If you trade field goals, you might just end up in a two-point conversion contest. But at least that gives your defense more chances. At least it gives you more chances. And isn’t that what this system is built for? Take the points, lean on the defense?
Kentucky dominated the stat sheet. The players, by and large, did what they were coached to do. And when you do all of that — and still lose to a flat opponent — you have to examine what it is you’re coaching them to do.
I know that’s harsh after a loss like this. I’ve struggled with this column. Maybe you can tell. I even slept on it. There were a dozen other plays. Some egregious flags, like always. Texas was a mess. It went out of bounds in the final minute to give Kentucky a chance at a game-tying field goal in regulation. I could lift out a half-dozen other things.
There has been great progress by Kentucky. Boley completed 80 percent of his passes. Players are doing good things.
But it all boils down to this. Endgames matter. And they are included in the $9 million salary.
Speaking with Tom Leach in his radio interview after the game, Stoops sounded gutted.
“When you invest that much and work that hard and don’t get the results that you want, it hurts,” he said.
That sentence pretty well says it all.
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