Three takeaways from Kentucky football’s loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores

Three takeaways from Kentucky football’s 20-13 loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday night at Kroger Field:

1. You can’t win playing dumb football

And Kentucky played dumb football.

Mark Stoops’ Wildcats entered Saturday the least penalized team in the SEC and 25th in the nation, averaging just 41.2 penalty yards per game. They exited having committed 12 fouls for 105 yards. And the yellow flags flew from start to finish.

It started on the game’s first drive. After making a 10-yard catch at the Vanderbilt 29-yard line, UK wide receiver Dane Key earned an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for taunting. Drive killed. Cats ended up punting.

Flags killed Kentucky’s final drive, as well. Needing a touchdown to tie the Commodores, UK speedster Barion Brown returned a punt to near midfield with 2:26 left. Or so he thought. Instead, the run was called back by an illegal block penalty on Kentucky freshman Steven Soles. Marched off from the spot of the foul, Kentucky instead started its final possession on its own 20.

Still, the Cats had a chance to move the ball. A 23-yard pass from Brock Vandagriff to Brown gave Kentucky the ball at the Vanderbilt 52. But next came a holding call against right tackle Gerald Mincey, his second of the game. Two plays later, left tackle Marques Cox was also called for holding. Facing a fourth-and-21 at his own 41, Vandagriff tossed an interception with 1:02 left that ended the game.

Stoops wasn’t without blame himself. He burned a timeout with 8:38 left in the third quarter for what turned out to be an unsuccessful challenge on what he thought was a fumble by Vandy quarterback Diego Pavia. (It wasn’t.) Later in the third, he took a 5-yard run to the Vandy 1-yard line — “Six-inch line,” Stoops said afterward — instead of taking an offsides penalty that would have made it first-and-goal at the 3. A false start penalty was followed by a rush for no gain, an incomplete pass and a botched hold on a field goal attempt. Bottom line: Already down 17-7, Kentucky failed to score on the possession.

“Very clearly, that wasn’t winning football,” Stoops said.

2. As expected, third down was key

In its 40-35 victory over then-No. 1 Alabama last week, Vanderbilt converted 12 of 18 third-down situations. That was a big reason why the Commodores controlled the football for 42:08 when toppling the Crimson Tide.

Ah, but Kentucky entered Saturday’s game 14th nationally in third-down defense, allowing opponents to convert just 30% of the time.

Alas, the Cats failed to have the same success against the ‘Dores. Vanderbilt was 4-of-5 on third down in the first half on the way to a 14-7 lead at the break. The Commodores were just 4-of-8 in the second half but ended up 8-of-13 overall. That helped Vanderbilt to have the football for 34:35, compared to 25:25 for the Cats.

“I do not think we played well,” said UK defensive coordinator Brad White, despite the fact Vanderbilt ended up with just 288 yards of total offense, compared to 322 for the Wildcats. “I do not think we played well enough to help this team play well. That’s on me and that’s on the coaching staff. More times than not, I’d take all of it, but I think our players would say that it was on them. As a defensive unit, from coaches to players, we did not play well enough today.”

3. Kentucky’s season is on the brink

Vanderbilt proved it’s no joke. Avoiding the rat poison, Clark Lea’s team followed up last Saturday’s shocker with its second straight SEC win. Vanderbilt is now 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the conference.

You have to wonder if Kentucky chewed on some rat poison over the off week. The Cats followed up their 20-17 win over then-No. 6 Ole Miss with their 10th loss in their last 12 home SEC games.

Maybe the good news is that Stoops’ squad is back on the road next week. UK is at Florida on Saturday for a 7:45 p.m. kickoff. But Billy Napier’s Gators took No. 8 Tennessee to overtime before losing in Knoxville on Saturday.

In addition to Florida, Kentucky has road games at Tennessee and Texas left on the docket, as well as home games against Auburn and Louisville. There are no pushovers among those five.

“This is a hard league,” Stoops said, “unless you haven’t noticed.”

We’ve noticed that Kentucky is now in a hard spot. The Cats are 3-3 overall and 1-3 in the SEC. Getting to six wins to keep the eight-year bowl streak is not going to be easy. In fact, it’s going to be a fight.

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