The agony of defeat hit Kentucky hard Saturday night.
The Wildcats, who defeated Mississippi State 40-38 on a last-second field goal earlier this year, lost in similar fashion Saturday night as Georgia booted the game-winner as time expired and escaped with a 27-24 victory, ending Kentucky’s three-game winning streak and the program’s first shot at potentially reaching the Southeastern Conference championship game for the first time in school history.
“It was a very difficult loss,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “There’s a lot of disappointed people in that locker room and I feel for them because I think our hearts and minds are in the right place.”
Prior to kickoff, Kentucky was in a first-place tie with Florida in the Eastern division standings after the Gators suffered a 31-10 setback at Arkansas Saturday. A win over the Bulldogs would have guaranteed the Wildcats a runner-up finish in the Eastern division, but Kentucky has to win at Tennessee next week in order to get its fifth league victory for the first time since 1977.
Although Stoops was pleased with his team’s preparation against his team’s Eastern division rival, he sensed something was missing despite the circumstances surrounding the contest.
“I really didn’t feel like we had an edge about us,” Stoops said. “I just didn’t like … just a certain look in our eye. I think our players wanted it to happen … I’ve just got to do a better job of getting them to play with that mentality and that edge.”
Kentucky, which overcame turnovers in wins over Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Missouri during the past four weeks, had a pair of miscues in the second half, both in back-to-back fashion that stalled a pair of promising drives and an opportunity to for the Wildcats to control the clock during the final half.
“We were off-balance and the turnovers don’t help either when you’re reeling a little bit,” Stoops said.
Georgia dominated the time of possession and held the ball for more than 15 minutes in the second half and limited Kentucky’s production during the final two quarters.
The Wildcats were so close to making the big plays they needed during a third-quarter drought but simply failed to finish. Receiver Garrett Johnson fumbled the ball away following a big gain and a quarterback Stephen Johnson pass bounced off receiver Jeff Badet’s chest into the hands of Georgia defensive back Deandre Baker, ending a potential momentum-clinching drive for Kentucky.
Kentucky running back Boom Williams said the missed opportunities made the loss more difficult to swallow.
“It sucks, everyone hates losing, especially when you know that you had a chance to win the game,” Williams said. “We know it’s going to hurt, we just have to make sure we do what we need to do so we don’t have this feeling again the rest of the season. We’ve got to put it behind us.”
Kentucky running back Benny Snell, who rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns against the Bulldogs, said the loss gave the Wildcats a “bad feeling” but quickly recovered.
”It’s behind me now,” Snell said. “I’m just going to get ready for next week. We’ve just got to keep going like we have each week. We came up short this week. We’re going to fix our mistakes.”
Although the Bulldogs scored just three points on the two turnovers by the Wildcats, Stoops said his team can’t keep making the same miscues with so much at stake during the final three weeks of the season.
“I think our guys are playing hard, we just need to execute better,” he said. “It takes extreme discipline in pressure situations and we didn’t execute it tonight.”
Despite playing on the road next week, Kentucky senior safety Marcus McWilson likes the team’s chances of securing a runner-up finish in the league with a win over the Volunteers.
“We’re all playing on the same field, so it’s anybody’s game,” he said. “Fifty percent of the teams lose on Saturday.”
Game tracker: Kentucky at Tennessee, noon, Saturday. TV/Radio: SEC Network, 98.1 WBUL.
Keith Taylor is a senior sports writer for KyForward, where he primarily covers University of Kentucky sports. Reach him at keith.taylor@kyforward.com or @keithtaylor21 on Twitter