CRAWFORD | Music City Mess: Kentucky bowl loss illustrates dwindling appeal of bowls

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WDRB) -- One of the challenges of getting older in this job is trying not to sound old. Start writing the "in my day" columns and that's an invitation for readers to move on, shake their heads and click on the next "see how this former child star looks now" link.

But I'm struggling with how to write about bowl games. How are we supposed to regard them?

Kentucky's 21-0 loss to Iowa in the Music City Bowl on Saturday is a great example.

The Wildcats played without quarterback Will Levis, who opted out of the game, and without star running back Chris Rodriguez, who did the same. Iowa, likewise, was without some key players, and its quarterback was making his first college start. This is the norm for bowl games. Louisville played without a significant number of players (and coaches), as did its opponent.

Still, I came away from the Kentucky loss not quite satisfied with how it was handled. Wildcats' coach Mark Stoops seemed to treat the game as a training mission for true freshman quarterback Destin Wade. He insisted that Kentucky was playing to win, but also seemed to acknowledge that he was putting Wade into a no-win situation against a defense ranked No. 3 in yards allowed and No. 7 against the pass in the entire Football Bowl Subdivision.

Wade finished 16-for-30 for 98 yards with a pair of Pick 6 interceptions. He got Kentucky past midfield twice. The Wildcats went 2-for-18 on third down. Their longest pass play went for 15 yards.

"We came in here to compete to win, but I also wanted to let Destin play," Stoops said. "I wanted to see the future and what it looks like and give him an opportunity to just go out there and play ball and play it with the confines of our offense and our system and down a coordinator. You know, he was put in a tough situation. He will learn from it without a doubt, and we look forward to that and his growth."

Saturday's offense, of course, was not the future. Kentucky is adding a top-notch quarterback in N.C. State transfer Devin Leary next season, for next season. So what are we to make of this game?

At this point, you need a disclaimer from me. Kentucky's QB2 all season was Kaiya Sheron, a redshirt freshman from Somerset. He's a somewhat distant cousin of mine, but his grandmother and my dad were close, and she and their family have been really good to our family.

So I'm going to recuse myself a little bit from the discussion over why Sheron wasn't given at least a series or two in this game, and at most a lot more, but not before pointing out that an untested freshman who had never taken a snap put the ball in the air more times (30) than Sheron was allowed to in four appearances this season (29) and against a far better defense. Sheron's quarterback rating in those appearances was nearly double what Wade put up on Saturday, and that under an offensive coordinator that Stoops let go at the end of the season. Among his completions were a pair of touchdown passes.

Stoops sees the players in practice and knows what he wants, and has the right to make those calls, but Wade threw two interceptions that were returned for touchdowns in the first half alone. You don't have to be related to Sheron to ask the question, "Why not give this guy a shot?"

"Destin was put in a tough situation today," Stoops said. "So there will be a lot of armchair quarterbacks that sit back and want to critique this guy, but I tell you right now, let them go back there and play against that defense and see how easy that is. It's a tough row to hoe. Believe me, we know that going into it. It's a tough spot, but he manned up and did some good things. . . . If you have three good quarterbacks, they can't get enough reps in practice, especially at a full-tilt in a scrimmage-like situation because I'm always yelling at these guys to stay off them because I don't want them to break their hand or step on their foot or do something. It's really tough until you get in there and do that, and we really wanted to see him go do that, and he really did some good things. . . . It was a really difficult situation to go into no matter who was playing quarterback today."

Wade did, in the situation, exactly what you'd expect him to do. The critique isn't of Wade. It's of Stoops for putting him into that situation. In the end, it's why I thought the Kentucky offense had more the feel of a scrimmage than a bowl game, more an NFL-style exhibition used for evaluation purposes than competitive outcome.

Regardless, I am sympathetic to the situation Stoops and all of these coaches in bowl games face. There's always a bigger picture these days when talking about bowl games and player management. The teams they take to the postseason bear only a passing (pardon the pun) resemblance to the teams they have coached all season. Key pieces are opting out. Young players are getting their chances.

How else are coaches to approach these games?

"It's very different," Stoops said. "I don't know what else to say. We compete to win the game. We came up short. None of us are happy with that. You know, these guys work and prepare to win, but is this exactly a great situation to throw him into? Here's a bowl game against a top-ten defense and because of the way this is. I don't know if that's right either, but I don't have all the answers. You know, I know we tried our best. I know we compete to win no matter what the stakes are, and we lost today, and I give Iowa credit for that."

In the end, the curtain comes down on a 7-6 season for Kentucky which is not what anyone envisioned. An early-season suspension for Rodriguez didn't help the cause. The offensive line didn't meet expectations after some key losses. Still, nobody came into the season expecting to lose to Vanderbilt, not with a quarterback projected as a high first-rounder for much of the year, not with an All-American running back and a Top 10 defense.

Those things should've added up to a much better year for a Kentucky team that rose to the No. 7 ranking in the nation early in the season. And Stoops, to his credit, acknowledges that.

"Obviously there was just something a bit off this year from time to time," Stoops said. "I just told the players this, and I'll tell you, that's on me. I have to get that fixed to get back to being who we are. . . . I already addressed certain things. I think you see I have two new coordinators come coming in here. That's two-thirds of it right there. You want me to just hit the reset button and blow up the whole thing? We're playing pretty good defense. No, I'm teasing. But there were just things. I have to own my part. That's what I just told the team in there.

"The environment of college football, I don't have all those answers. I can't go on that dissertation right now. You know, it is what it is. We are going to manage it the best way we can. We feel like we have a strong culture. There were pieces that needed to be better. It's that simple, right? I mean, I have to address them, and I have to make it better. It's not pointing any fingers. It is what it is. If you want to throw darts at somebody, throw them at me. I can take them. I'm putting that weight back on, so I can take a few more darts. You know, there are things that we need to re-address. You know, with bringing in the coordinator that I believe I'm going to get on the offensive side of the ball will help. It will help hit the reset button."

Coaching college sports – especially the big-time gigs in college football and basketball – has changed more in the past two years than people realize. You have unrestricted free agency in the transfer portal. You have the players getting paid – and none of us really can measure the effects on teams and players from that simple fact.

What Stoops has going for him is that he knows who he is, knows what he wants his team to be, and knows where it didn't meet that standard this season.

But understand, his job in particular, and the jobs of most college coaches in general, is getting harder, not easier. And next year is shaping up as a pivotal one for Kentucky if it wants to keep trying to climb an SEC ladder that gets more treacherous with every league expansion.

What happens in some bowl game nobody will remember 10 minutes from now, let alone 10 years, doesn't make much difference.

Still, it leaves me with the question, given the way the portal and opt-outs are trending, do we really need these dressed-up postseason exhibition games?

At the end of his news conference, Stoops was asked a question about Iowa continuing to pass the ball on its final drives of the game.

"I don't know," Stoops said. "I was ready to get the hell out of there myself. I know that."

It did have that feel.

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